Quits
by Borath
Summary: "I want an interface. That's all. Peace after all these years in exchange for your pride." / And dignity, a subtle voice supplied to Optimus as he felt his features slacken in horror.: Hard M chapter 1. OP/M - OP/IH
1. Chapter 1

Inspired by Steelcrash's _All's Fair_.

This is set in the 2007/9 Movie-Verse but I've got the Nemesis here as a location. I figure that it's not too much of a stretch that Megatron could have had it arrive at some point.

This has an established Optimus/Ironhide relationship and deals with rape and recovery from rape. Warnings for Hard M in this chapter.

Click back without hesitation if it's simply not for your stomach.

If you're as sadistic as me, read on, dear reader.

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Quits

_Chapter One_

Megatron had invited him with the sole stipulation that they would both come alone to negotiate the terms of peace. Though wary, Optimus couldn't let the chance slide and had arrived at the dried riverbed near to the Decepticon base having ordered the Autobots to stay behind. Ironhide specifically. They'd been sparkmates for a year now, and the specialist had been the hardest to convince to let him go alone.

Optimus was left to close the distance between them when Megatron showed no sign of moving from where he was stood, arms crossed and head tipped back proudly. The Autobot leader came to halt when there were only a few metres between them – the closest they'd ever been to each other outside of a battle. Silence dragged out and the shadows of the clouds drifted across their bodies. It was a challenge to see who would break first.

Not seeing it as a sign of weakness but rather a simple means to get started, Optimus broke the quiet. "Well Megatron? What are your terms?"

Finally Megatron moved, a slick smile easing across his features as his head cocked, arms tightening across his chassis. "Good of you to come, Prime. I've been looking forward to this for years."

Optimus frowned, not attempting to hide his confusion behind the battle mask. "Years?"

"Four of this planet's solar years, actually, since I realized that a Decepticon victory would be, ultimately, futile. Your mechs would never truly join mine if I could force you to surrender, and there have been no new survivors from Cybertron arriving meaning our numbers are likely finite and shrinking." His optics glowed hotter, narrowing with mirth and something that Optimus couldn't identify. "So what I want now, all I want now, is victory over you, Prime. Just you."

"You will agree to peace," Optimus began, scepticism overtaken by a genuine and foreboding curiosity, "if I concede my personal defeat to you?"

Megatron's body suddenly became animated, his arm slashing out in a dismissive swipe. "No, Prime, I don't want you to simply say it. I want to defeat you. I want to destroy everything that you are, see you lay yourself down as a sacrifice on the alter of peace and leave you in ruins. I want to win, Prime, and then there'll be no more lives lost on this miserable planet."

Clearly there was a very big catch somewhere, and Optimus wanted to know what it was up front. "What is it you want from me, Megatron?"

His smile thinned, turning as sharp as a blade. "I want an interface. That's all. Peace after all these years in exchange for your pride."

And dignity, a subtle voice supplied to Optimus as he felt his features slacken in horror. Megatron wanted his total humiliation, to degrade him in the worst possible way, to attack him without a battle-mist driving his blows. His fuel tank twisted, semi-processed energon swirling as his parts tightened in a spasm.

The truly sick thing was that he'd already agreed to it in his own mind. One interface, a few hours at most, and this planet they had no right to be on would no longer be war-torn. The humans would no longer be in constant danger, and the Autobots could rest as they'd long deserved to. Needed to. He was Prime: his duty was to bring unity and peace in any way he could. After several millennia of fighting, they were no closer to it, only succeeding in approaching the extinction of their species. What Megatron wanted wasn't really such a high price, and to turn the offer down would be an unspeakably selfish act. And Megatron knew it.

Dentals clamping behind the battlemask, Optimus waited for a moment until every fibre of him had resolved to his decision. Finally he straightened and gave a curt nod. "I accept your terms," he replied flatly, extending a charged hand.

Megatron's grin turned feral and he took the offered hand in a firm grip, sending a return charge back against the Autobot's. It sealed the promise into their circuits, eradicating the chance of betrayal. The Decepticon almost laughed when he saw the relief pass across the tall mech's optics, a momentary pleasure in the achievement of what had been fought towards for so long broken when he released his hand. "Come with me, Prime. My quarters."

The Nemesis was quiet, and the pair didn't encounter anyone as they traversed its intricate corridors to reach the commander's quarters. They were cavernous, dark and foreboding, a complete opposite to the Autobot's humble and sparse living space. Megatron glanced over his shoulder to the mech lingering a few paces behind him, motioning with his head to the grey slab before him. "Lie down."

The berth was wide enough for them both if they touched shoulder to shoulder. Ignoring the nauseous swirl in his fuel tank, Optimus moved to sit and finally ease himself back along one side, his hand dangling over the edge. Megatron came about the berth to grab him firmly by shoulder and hip, dragging him in one pull to the centre of the grey padded surface. When the blue optics shuttered, vents droning, he barked, "You will watch."

That's right, he would. This was his victory, after all. Megatron's millennia-long campaign to rule was at an end, and the peace that he'd led hundreds of soldiers to die for was finally here. They'd won, and nothing Megatron could do to him now was going to change that.

Finding some unspecific point on the ceiling to stare at, Optimus ignored the sound of Megatron climbing up onto the berth by his feet, vents spilling hot air across his plates. He assessed the structure of the ceiling, finding it mercifully soundproof and without any kind of recording device. That was something, at least. The mech was just beginning to force his body into a passive limpness when a chirp from his finial caused him to stiffen, optics widening as Ironhide reached for him through their bond.

:Optimus? What's going on? What did Megahead want?:

Strong hands touched at his shin plates, fingers sliding in under the armour to stroke his sensitive protoform beneath. The claws tripped over transformation lines with uncanny skill, plucking them into electrical life. He shifted, focussed on Ironhide's voice in his processor as much as he didn't want it to be there. :Please, 'Hide, I don't want you to see this.:

:See what? What the slag is going on?:

Megatron had found the main neural lines and followed them up, navigating about his thighs to grasp his hip. There was a curdling swell of nausea alongside a faint, cold note of arousal. "Put your hands above your head, Prime, and keep them there. Retract your mask."

Despite his position, Optimus's voice still managed to convey a warning threat. "Megatron-"

"You agreed to this, Prime," Megatron broke in with a thick growl. "You gave you word. Now give me what I want."

With a groan through his vents, Optimus focussed more intently on the ceiling and obeyed. :We're negotiating a truce. Everything will be fine.: He tried to close the connection but Ironhide forced it back open, a wave of concern flooding back alongside frustration. With his sparkmate reaching for him like this, it was impossible to ignore the sensations building across his body. The reality of what was happening. :Ironhide, please…:

The hands slid to his rib struts and increased in pressure as something else was shoved between his knees, indicating for him to part his legs. A warning sound from Megatron, a wordless reminder that he had agreed to this, finally made Optimus comply, his legs slowly bending and shifting open. It was a foreign position, one he recognised from the Internet as the traditional placement for a human female in sex. His mounting uncertainty alongside everything else finally drew out the whimper that had been lurking in his vocal processor.

Ironhide heard it, felt a flow of shame, disgust and fear, and the bond filled with static for a few seconds. Finally, a whisper filtered through just loud enough for Optimus to 'hear'. :Primus, tell me he's not.:

:It's all he wants for peace: Optimus snapped back, fists tightening above his head as Megatron settled between his thighs. It was an affirmation for himself as much as for his sparkmate, words he clung to when those unwanted hands began to roam again. :He wants to feel that he's defeated me. A few joors of personal discomfort is a small price to pay.:

:Personal discomfort?: Though it was not truly spoken, the words still managed to sound spat. :Frag Optimus, what you're talking about -:

Optimus's cry cut him off, Megatron's hands having found and pulled open his interface port. Finally dragging his stare to meet the kneeling mech's, Optimus felt his systems shudder at the shadow of arousal that had spread across the crimson glow. There was no going back, though. Not now. It would be over soon, though. The mercy of having an atomic chronometer was that he didn't perceive time subjectively, and knew that no matter how it felt this wouldn't last forever. He unlocked his chassis and began to open his chest plates, reluctantly exposing his shivering spark in its chamber.

He flinched when Megatron grasped the plates, stopping them from opening any further, and Optimus met the bloody stare with optics filled with bewilderment. "No Prime. I don't simply want a spark merge." His head tipped, fangs shining. "If there's one good thing that's come out of being on this miserable planet, it's learning about organic sex. Humans know how to fuck, Prime, and I want to -fuck- you."

A hiss and something extended from the Decepticon's codpiece, a sharp protrusion of metal wrapped with interface ports and bare neural lines. Optimus only glanced at it, the sound alongside the threat enough to make his fists tremble. The open panel that covered his own exposed port was snapped off effortlessly, and he arched with a shout as an exploratory finger was thrust between the wiring. Paralysed with anxiety, dread and this new intimate pain, the mech shuttered his optics so that at least some part of him wasn't paying attention to what was going on. The finger twisted, moved in deeper. His body lurched at the foreign, excruciating contact. :'Hide, help me.:

:Where are you?: Ironhide's tone was thick and growled down the bond.

:The Nemesis, but I don't-: The finger was abruptly replaced with that awful metal thing, a searing lance of agony feeling like it would split him in two. Instinctively Optimus bucked, brought his hands up to throw Megatron off only to have his wrists pinned back above his head. Processor foggy from the tearing, burning pain, he couldn't find the sense to fight back.

"How does it feel, Prime?" Megatron crooned into his finial, their chassis flush as he began to shift his hips. It elicited another pained shout, the strong body beneath him jerking and writhing with a helplessness that he found utterly delicious. "How is it to be laid out like a fleshling whore beneath your greatest enemy? How is it to be fucked?"

A choked sound as Optimus forced his body to still, iterating against the flashing warnings telling him that his port was destroyed, his systems were strained and energon was beginning to back up towards a purge that this nightmare would not last. Megatron would overload, recover and then either kill him and leave the Autobots and humans in peace, or watch him gather the shreds of his pride and return to the Base alive. He could live with this.

:Stay with me, Optimus.: Ironhide's voice in his mind had taken on a pleading quality, desperate with a need to protect him and helpless with the knowledge that he couldn't. :Just focus on me.:

:Stop, please.: Optimus twisted again, crying out as something finally ruptured and began leaking hot energon through his pelvis. The worst part was he knew that Megatron couldn't overload from this, and he probably knew that too. This was purely a humiliation tactic. And it was working. :It's bad enough without you here.:

:All you need to do is survive this.: It was the same tone that Ironhide used to teach on the firing range, a firm pitch that he now clung to. :Survive it, that's all. Just let him do what he wants to your body. Keep your mind with me. Focus on me.:

The thrusts were hard but slow, steady and regular as Megatron studied his face with a tight jaw and dark optics. On a whim he pressed their mouths together, sliding a fang into a cold lip to gain entry and swallowing the keening sound that came out. This imitation of sex was pleasant, particularly with the way the legendary Prime was squirming against him, but nothing like what he needed to overload. But he didn't want to overload – it had never been his intent to do so. This act was a weapon, not something intended to satisfy his own sexual desires.

Their mouths parted, stale air and burning energon swimming up to fill his senses as he looked down into Optimus's shuttered optics. "I said you were to watch." A frown but then the blue lights reappeared, face twisting into a grimace. Sitting up, he kept one hand clutching Optimus's wrists whilst the other ghosted down to his chassis, stroking the slightly parted central seam. "You're not leaving until you overload."

At those damning words underlined with a hard thrust, Optimus flexed against the crudely pistoning metal and bellowed everything that he couldn't articulate. The pain was astonishing, but that statement that it would last until he forced his body to feel enough pleasure to climax at his enemy's touch burned through his processor a thousand times worse. Ironhide pressed against the bond and his reply felt horrific to his own mind. :I have to overload for him to stop.:

Another long pause, then, :Pretend you're with me,:

With his chassis finally coaxed open to bare his spark chamber. Optimus's engine choked, jaw clenching hard enough to crack his dental plates. :'Hide, I can't.:

:Yes you can." Reassurance down the bond, forced to drown out everything else that Ironhide was feeling. :Focus on me.:

Optimus returned to a point over Megatron's right shoulder to stare at, keeping his optics open as demanded but not seeing what was being done to him. Sharp fingers descended into his chassis, tracing the lines leading towards his spark chamber beneath the Matrix. Megatron's hips continued to shift, something sawing and cutting deeper into his body with each undulation.

:Remember that night we bonded in the rain?:

Latching onto the clear memory, Optimus nodded to himself and hissed against Megatron's probing hand. :Yes.:

A soft, forced laugh sang down to him. :You shook like a petrorabbit, even when you were against me.:

:I remember.: It was one of his dearest memories, something precious to cling to right now. A rush of hot air and the fangs returned to his lips, glossa exploring his mouth before moving to his jaw, nipping at sensitive lines. Then Megatron's thumb circled the base of his spark chamber, teasing the mechanism that closed the final barrier between his bare spark and the Decepticon's claws. :Oh Primus, 'Hide, he's-:

:I know, I know.: Ironhide soothed, voice thick with emotion. :Don't think about that. Think about me. Remember how that was the first time you let me be on top? Let me hold you for once.: Optimus couldn't summon a response to that, torn between the pain, the growing charge and the overwhelming wish to offline and never wake up, so Ironhide continued. :And you just lay there looking at me, watched me run my hands on your chassis.:

A silence and then, sounding choked, Optimus managed a reply :You were smiling.:

Warmth through the bond came like a balm, though an ineffective one. "I'd never been happier than I was then, looking down at ya. Knowing we were about to tie our sparks together like that."

Megatron's hand had opened his spark chamber and now a thumb teased over the crackling energy, summoning arcs of light. :'Hide… Can you feel what's happening?:

A low sound. :I can feel your fear. Your arousal.:

Optimus shuttered his optics with a groan, his spark tearing at itself. :Primus…:

:No, that's good,: Ironhide assured quickly, feeling far calmer than he would have expected. But it was nearly over now. :It's what he wants. It'll be over quicker if you just let it happen. Focus. Think about us bonding.:

The charge was building across his body, extremities turning hot and tingling. It took a lot of thought to wrestle back the maelstrom of feelings enough to reply. :It was raining so hard I couldn't always make you out against the sky.:

A purr of agreement, so different to the sensations he was feeling. :The water gathered in your neck when you tipped your head back. Let me kiss you. Bite you. Please you.:

Optimus arched, momentarily forgetting himself to the memory. :You always please me.:

:You'd never let yourself go like that before.' Ironhide almost added that until then Optimus had never put himself at his mercy, but the words died in his processor. Optimus had turned out to be a submissive partner, passionate but finding great freedom in the one place where he didn't have to lead, and it was not something he needed reminding about now. :I remember your spark was like a nova, or a dying star, reaching out for mine.:

His vents cycled up to full capacity, trying to drag down his core temperature despite the coolant he was loosing. Optimus turned his head away when Megatron went to bite his mouth again, offering the far less intimate side of his neck instead. :I needed you. I need you." A pinched neural line sent a jolt of heat straight through him. 'Hide…:

Ironhide spoke determined to sound as if he wasn't listening to a rape. :The first thing you said across our bond was that you loved me. I think about it every time I see you.:

A whimper, and Optimus cringed at the chuckle it provoked from Megatron. :Will you love me after this?:

:Of course I will,: Ironhide rumbled back. :This is the bravest, most selfless and stupidest thing you've ever done.:

The myriad of hot and cold sensations finally overwhelmed the Autobot beyond the ability to reply, Megatron's claws dipping into his spark eliciting a razor-edged pleasure. He'd stopped rocking his hips, allowing the tingle building up and spreading outwards from his spark to come to the forefront of his mind. His system felt warm and swollen, hovering between ecstasy and bitter hatred.

:'Hide.:

Ironhide replied softly to that quietly panicked plea. :You're close. Let it happen. Imagine it's my hands on your plates, my spark against your spark, my mouth on your mouth. Let go.:

At the gentle, coaxing instruction, Optimus surrendered himself to the electrical charge threatening to run riot throughout his systems. It was a bittersweet overload, the physical relief the only pleasure to be found in the rough, hard rush of power that stiffened his frame, pulled back his head and left him roaring.

Ironhide waited for him to ride it out and come back to himself before sending a pulse of reassurance and love down the bond. :That's it. It's over. You can come back to me.:

Megatron sat back slowly, his hands resting idle on Optimus's thighs as he watched the mighty chassis close with a series of clicks and whines. His own spark hummed, further stimulated by the neural lines detecting leaking fluids from where their bodies were melded. "That was fittingly spectacular, Prime. You've kept your word, and I shall keep mine." A fast series of clicks to jerk the savage phallus back and then the Decepticon slid back off the bottom of the berth, watching the prone mech for a moment before heading towards the door. "You're free to go. I trust you can see yourself out."

Bringing a shaking hand to his face, Optimus squeezed across his optics and jaw in turn as his aching chassis finished resealing. He wanted to purge across Megatron's berth but didn't, resolved to get out of here as soon as possible. Moving disturbed the shredded elements in his pelvis, issuing more energon and coolant leaks from the split tubes. He froze at the fresh wash of pain and shame now that the tingle of overload had fully passed.

Through the bond came a flood of warmth and reassurance. :Come back to me, love.:

Vents heaving, Optimus wrapped his mind around his sparkmate's words and forced himself to sit up, shifting his legs over the side of the berth. He took a second to brace himself before sliding off onto his feet, mouth opening in a silent scream. There was no choice but to walk, to get outside the base. Then he could transform and drive the rest of the way home. Failing that, he could summon Ironhide and Ratchet and have some help getting back. Then they could all rest, safe in the knowledge of having peace at last. Despite the pain, Optimus found his mouth pulled with the ghost of a smile.

:Meet me halfway. I'm coming.:


	2. Chapter 2

Quits:

_Chapter 2: _

The sun had set by the time he finally left the Nemesis, miraculously encountering no Decepticons as he made slow, painful progress through the twisting corridors leading outside. In the desert the air was sharp and crisp, a cloudless night completely exposing his body to the moonlight.

Optimus dragged his feet half a mile from the ship before he allowed himself to sink to his knees in the sand, falling forwards onto his fists and heaving up everything in his fuel tank. The sand around him rapidly saturated, appearing black to his optics. The energon sparkled faintly and the coolant and mechanical fluids pouring freely from his ruined pelvis seemed to absorb light in twisting shimmers. There was no way he was going to be able to walk back unassisted to the Base, and a quick twitch of his transformation cogs that left him screaming confirmed that he wouldn't be driving either. Sitting back on his haunches, he pressed a hand firmly to his gut in an attempt to stop the shattered parts inside from moving. His other hand went to his finial, opening the bond with Ironhide an effort. :'Hide, I can't go any further.:

:I'm half an hour away from you: came the clipped reply, surrounded by silence though Optimus could imagine the throaty roar of Ironhide's engine as he tore across the terrain. :I've got Doc with me.:

A grimace and Optimus rubbed his optics, his hand registering against his sensors as smelling of ozone and burnt fuel. :I only want you.:

:You're not gonna be able to hide this from him: A grim sound though it was edged with a more pleased kind of anticipation. :Besides, I need someone to stay with you and get you back whilst I rip Megatron apart.:

Hot anger burned through his systems and gave him the push to get back to his feet, vents gasping as he fixed his optics on the horizon again and started walking. :No – we are at peace now. You will not jeopardise everything that I have…: His CPU jerked in on itself and suddenly the pain was a good thing. Distracting. Optics downcast he realized that he was leaving wet footprints in his wake. :It's done, all of it. Just help get me home.:

A buzzing silence, then finally, :Yes Sir.:

Optimus stilled, gritting his fractured dentals and quickly finding his knees against the sand again. He touched his finial. :Prime out.:

Optimus had been groggy by the time Ironhide and Ratchet arrived, instructing them in Cybertronian shorthand clicks to keep silent and help him walk. They'd obeyed, exchanging dark glances and grimacing when the fluids simply stopped leaking from the mech's body leaving his systems trembling and grinding. Ratchet didn't give him a choice when they finally reached the Medbay near dawn, shutting down his processor with a deft electrical contact to his throat and easing his body onto the largest berth whilst Ironhide secured the doors.

As Ratchet ran his preliminary scans, Ironhide came to stand at Optimus's side and rested his fists on the berth, head bowed. The medic blinked out of the sensor sweep with bright optics. "I've never seen injuries like this."

"I doubt anyone has," Ironhide muttered, taking a sharp inhalation through his vents before straightening. He watched as Ratchet moved to the mech's hip, running a hand glowing with sensors along his abdomen. "Only Megatron could be sadistic enough to do this."

Ratchet's hand slid across the hot armour with a soft, metallic hum. "He was impaled, though not by any weapon system I'm familiar with. No residual charge, no foreign debris. From here." His hand moved three full spans up from the juncture of his thighs. "To here. Primary fluid lines completely severed, coolant tank pulped, lubricant store sheared, transformation cogs warped and missing, neural and motor lines just… By Primus, what is this?"

Ironhide shook his head. "Megatron wanted his… personal defeat, in exchange for peace. He gave it. He gave it for us."

"He could have just torn his legs off," Ratchet growled, moving to the base of the bed and feeding a line from his wrist into the unconscious mech's knee. With a simple command he willed the leg to bend and shift outwards, allowing him to see the jagged wound. "That would at least have been a straightforward repair."

The weapons mech shook his head, unable to look at the other. Unable to shift his gaze from Optimus's thumb resting against his forefinger. "He didn't just want to damage him physically. Megatron was after a psychological victory." His vocal processor tripped, emitting a hard sound like Bumblebee's used to when his was broken. "He raped him, literally and symbolically."

Ratchet's systems skipped a rotation, hands twitching as he looked up from the ugly breach. "But his spark chamber hasn't been forced."

Ironhide's optics shuttered of their own accord, head sinking deeper. "I know."

The medic shook his head, unwilling to believe despite everything in front of him. "Are you sure?"

"Frag it, I felt him go through it," Ironhide bellowed back, suddenly animated and striding into Ratchet's chassis, driving him backwards. "I listened to him justify what was being done so this slagging war would be over, told him it would be alright, talked to him when he had to overload so that it would end. I know exactly what this was."

A long astringent silence as Ironhide bit his glossa and Ratchet stared blankly, lost as to what he could possibly say or do in response to that. Finally he laid a tentative hand on a dark shoulder, nodding when the mech sighed and stepped back to give him some room. Approaching the berth again, Ratchet regarded his patient with dimmer optics, suddenly feeling nauseous and weary. "It's, ah, going to be a complicated repair. This kind of damage… A lot of delicate circuitry's been destroyed."

"I figured."

Ratchet laid his hands on the edge of the berth, fingers tightening in thought. "I'm relieving him of command for the foreseeable future. As Prowl was his second, he'll be in charge. And he'll need to know about this."

Ironhide grunted, folding his arms. "Beyond him, this doesn't leave this room."

"Agreed. Though, someone else whom you trust will need to know so you'll have someone to talk to about all this. As his sparkmate you'll need to have that option." Ratchet glanced back to the taller mech over his shoulder. "And we don't have anything like a dedicated counsellor around here."

The old mech set aside his customary response that he didn't need to 'talk' about anything. If there was ever anything that was going to get under his plates hard enough to scar his spark, then the last four hours were it. "I can always just talk to you if I need to purge."

Something like a grim smile. "After tonight you may not want to." A beat and then Ratchet's hand twisted itself into a complex array of drills and picks, beginning the slow task of deconstructing the myriad of parts of Prime's pelvis. "I suggest you leave for this repair. Take something to help you recharge and come back in the morning. He'll be online then."

Ironhide shook his head once, impassive. That instruction seemed impossible to carry out.

Ratchet cycled a sigh, drumming his fingers as he thought of how best to word this. "Ironhide, you can't help him right now. In fact, as his sparkmate you may hurt him through proximity, transmitting your emotions through the bond where they'll be unconsciously absorbed. Some distance will help take the edge off that." When Ironhide met his stare, almost convinced, he offered a small smile. "Rest. He'll need you to be strong."


	3. Chapter 3

Quits

_Chapter Three_

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Ironhide held the composure of his namesake until he'd reached the end of the corridor from the Medbay, coming to a stop with his optics fixed on the ground. The corner of the wall crumpled around his suddenly extended fist at his side, a micron of the violence he felt bubbling up from his bearings and searing through his lines. Resting his weight against the warped wall, he rubbed his optics and forced his fans to slow.

He hadn't expected to see his sparkmate damaged like that. Not physically, at least. Through the bond he'd felt Optimus's racing emotions, a nauseating mix to behold, but physical sensation had remained private from him. When finally reaching him in the desert and seeing the mech's distorted frame, the rapid fluid loss and heard the sounds of his dry and damaged systems chewing against each other, he'd known exactly what had happened. Touching Optimus's spark chamber, the most intimate part of him, and bringing it to a forced overload hadn't been enough. The sadistic tyrant had abused and degraded him symbolically using an act from the very species the Autobots had been here to protect.

It had twisted his tanks that he could even fathom it, and the nightmarish reality of its actuality had nearly blinded him. He wanted Megatron in his hands, in pieces, preferably on fire, but Optimus had needed him more. And he'd been right: to go engaging Megatron now would break the peace agreement that the Prime had so recklessly laid himself down for, thus making the rape an entirely pointless endurance. Though the logic restrained him, a shrill ringing had yet to leave his CPU, just one of the many ripple effects from his spark.

What really seared, though, was that if the war had never come to Earth and endangered the humans, then this wouldn't have happened. Optimus and the Autobots had fought in the traditional manner for millennia, losing comrades and friends, destroying entire uninhabited worlds, and the fighting would have continued exactly like that if it weren't for the humans. The fragile, innocent, swarming humans. Quite simply, Optimus had laid himself down to end the war quickly so that the species wasn't in danger anymore. The mech couldn't help but think back to seeing the Prime's body dropped from the helicopter cables against the unyielding ground when Megatron had temporarily succeeded in killing him. Such careless, disrespectful treatment, and Optimus was willing to do this to protect them. They'd most likely never find out. The internal tirade made him shake.

Quite suddenly he didn't know what to do with himself. Ratchet had locked himself with Optimus in the Medbay and recharging was the furthest thing from his mind. His cannons ached, desperate to fire until they were warped from the heat to avenge this somehow. There was only one thing had wanted to do, and as he couldn't he'd do the next best thing. He headed for the firing range.

The toughest training drones were six feet tall and fired back from an array of low-power lasers positioned around their cylindrical bodies. Epps had once surmised them as floating metal punching bags with an irresponsible amount of guns, quite clearly designed by Ironhide himself. The weapons specialist took two of them from the storage cupboard by the warehouse door and activated them a little way across the asphalt yard. As programmed, they waited until he'd moved away and activated his own weapons systems before they began to weave and pepper him with laser fire.

Ironhide twisted sideways and fired a savage volley whilst rolling, the unusually heavy amount of ammunition completely obliterating the first drone and sending it smoking back to the ground. The remaining drone moved to hover over the sparking debris, spinning rapidly to fire back at different heights almost simultaneously. Finding his cannons inadequate to achieve what he really wanted, Ironhide cycled them back and dodged the streaks of red light as he bore down on the drone in a thunderous charge.

With a roar he slammed into its body, sending it crashing down with his weight and stuttering retaliatory fire into his chassis. Sitting on its cylindrical body, Ironhide delivered a savage punch to the targeting sensors that made up the machine's face. The next blow was ploughed into the electrical core of the drone, turning its weapons limp and drooping the barrels. Though it was clearly deactivated he kept punching, drawing his fast back far from his shoulder and twisting it on the strike, putting his body into the blow to install as much energy as possible.

The casing of the droid rippled, buckled and tore, a cavernous hole of flattened metal and leaking fuel forming in its middle. When it was entirely flattened Ironhide kept going, cracking the surrounding asphalt from the force of his punches as he mechanically slammed a crater into the ground through the droid. His hand servos whined at the abuse, the lines and plates in his hand fracturing as he went on and on.

He wasn't seeing anything beneath his fist. His mind was blank of anything but this blind, frustrated rage and the shrill scream from his spark that this should not have happened. That this abomination of an attack should never have been able to take place. That he should have done a whole lot more than just talk Optimus through it.

Unknown to him and drawn out by the racket, Bumblebee and Lennox stood at the doorway onto the yard with equal expressions of stunned shock. Slack jawed, the soldier looked up to the yellow mech to ask what the hell this was about but sensed that such a question would breach the silent taboo surrounding this terrible sight. Bumblebee noticed his querying glance, flexing a hand to gesture him away.

"Please go back inside, Captain. Ironhide would not wish for you to see him like this."

Lennox nodded, understanding as much. This was far from the first time he'd seen a soldier snap. Usually it was with a gun, pounding shot after shot into a target or spraying aimlessly across enemy terrain, driven by enraged frustration and something like helplessness. Seeing something as huge and powerful as Ironhide engaged in this behaviour was as terrifying as it was unsettling, even if it did humanise him even more. He didn't move immediately though, seeing Bumblebee's gaze fix back upon the dark mech trying to punch a hole through the planet. "Are you going to talk to him? Find out what's happened?"

"I'm going to try," the mech answered softly, shooing the soldier away again and finally stepping out into the yard.

Immediately Ironhide spun about on one knee, canons targeted and face a rictus of animalistic savagery. Bumblebee held up his hands, not moving from the spot. "What's going on, 'Hide?"

A taut silence as Ironhide remained unaffected by the question, looking very much like he would offline the young mech and anyone else nearby there and then. Finally the canons trembled back from being one neural command from firing and the mech looked away, weight sagging back and down and his facial plates held tightly arranged in a grimace. Bumblebee risked moving forwards.

When the younger mech was at his side, Ironhide expected a hand to appear with light pressure on his shoulder and wasn't disappointed. Bumblebee didn't kneel, finding them at an almost equal optic height like this. "What's happened?"

Ironhide shook his head, jaw twitching. "I'm gonna kill 'em, 'Bee. Both of 'em," he finally growled, arm tensing before he drew back his fist and sent it slamming back into the ground. This time he hissed, cradling the appendage in his lap as his pain sensors finally took priority. "Primus, peace isn't worth this."

Bumblebee's optics shuttered in quick succession, stunned. "Peace?"

The old mech twisted his body to regard him, expression weary. "Yeah. With the Decepticons." A hard grunt through his vents. "The war's over. We should have a fragging party."

"What happened?" Bumblebee asked again, plates tightening in confusion. He'd known that Optimus had gone to meet Megatron that afternoon – he'd been one of the ones to protest him going alone. Prowl had caught him trying to sneak off after him, and now he sorely regretted not trying harder to elude the tactician. "Between Megatron and Prime?"

Ironhide's pistons sagged with a hot exhale, weapons clicking back into a holstered position as he got his emotions back under control. Carrying on like this was going to prompt more questions, and he didn't want to answer them whatever Ratchet might say about his 'need to talk.' Sliding a hand to his knee, he heaved up onto his feet and forced a thin smile. "Prime got us peace, that's what happened. Megatron… messed him up a bit first, though."

Shuttering his optics, he rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, frowning. Bumblebee waited for him, tracking the big mech's fidgeting movements with a scrutinizing gaze. Finally their optics met again, and Ironhide laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't tell anyone 'bout this yet, alright? This is his bit of good news to share, and Primus knows we've never had enough of that."

"Sure thing," Bumblebee nodded, quirking a smile. Behind his calm arrangement of plates his CPU was whirring wildly, speculating on what else there was to this that could make Ironhide this out of control. Even momentarily. He'd seen half of what the old mech had, done less in the war, yet Ironhide had remained a steady presence throughout his life - apparently unfazed by the fighting. It had jolted his gears to see him lost in rage. He wanted to ask if he'd be okay, but knew better.

"Go get some recharge," Ironhide murmured, breaking the mech's thoughts. He gave the slim shoulder a brief squeeze before retracting his hand, flexing his fingers into a loose fist. "Think I'll be doing the same. Got a long day tomorrow."

Bumblebee shifted his weight between his feet, optics narrowing fractionally. "I'll take your word for it."

* * *

The repairs hadn't been as difficult as he'd been expecting. They'd been a lot worse. In the end, Ratchet had had to fix an old field arch to assist, a tool usually used only by trainee medics. The half pipe that clamped onto one side of the berth created an electromagnetic field that held free moving parts in place so that they had to be physically moved by tools and hands. All medics could create small scale, site-specific fields for repairs through their fingers, thus making the clunky piece of equipment redundant. With Optimus's pelvis this shattered, though, Ratchet had found his hands quickly muddled by sheared and fragmented parts that seemed to want to blend into each other and had had no choice but to break out the arch.

Eight hours had passed and the worst of it was over, the unrecoverable debris removed and neural and motor lines replaced. Cogs, small plates and the dented parts of a hydraulic piston floated static around his hands as Ratchet rested his wrists on the outside wall of the mech's pelvis, contemplating what to do next. Deciding on the coolant system as his next repair, he gently swept the floating parts aside and reached for the formerly cylindrical tank. He'd just wrenched it free when his finial chirped.

_Ratchet, Ironhide tells me that Prime has been damaged to such an extent that you've relieved him of command, and furthermore, that we are no longer at war with the Decepticons._ Prowl paused to let his incredulous tone sink in. _How precisely are you going to begin explaining this to me?_

The medic growled a sigh and crushed the tank, dropping it to one side with the rest of the unusable parts. _I'm still in the middle of conducting the repairs, Prowl, and I'm not discussing anything with you until I've talked to my patient._

_And when's that likely to be?_

Ratchet looked over his work again. Technically, with Optimus hooked up to external pumps and filters and with a heavy dose of pain suppressant, he could bring him online now. But the part of him that viewed the mech as a friend was keen to put that moment off for as long as possible, despite this being a reality that they would all have to face up to at some point. _Give me another hour to get him presentable, and as the Chief Medical Officer of this unit I forbid you to disclose the fact that he's here. This is not an occasion for well-wishers._

A short silence, long enough for Prowl to check the rulebook on that point, before finally: _Understood. I'll see you in an hour. Prowl out._

Left with the Medbay's quiet, droning atmosphere once again, Ratchet looked over the long body with his hands braced on the berth. Optimus was stable and aside from his coolant and hydraulics, most of the repairs left were related to his alt form. It would be best to get this over with sooner rather than later, he reasoned. Talk to Optimus, get Prowl straight and then the running of this place would be officially out of Prime's hands and he could focus on finishing the repair work. Both physical and psychological. On the latter he was already feeling quite lost, not knowing how such an act was going to impact based on the mech's personality and history. He'd give anything for his men – Pit, he'd died for them once already, and been forced up fighting seconds after his spark was dragged back from that. Now he really had given everything he possibly could for the Autobots, and Ratchet was uneasy as to whether it had finally been too much.

Surely it had to be.

With an irritated sound to himself, Ratchet forcibly compartmentalised these thoughts in his CPU and set about putting the secondary systems about his hands into a running condition, replacing the external armour once he was finished to give the appearance of an undamaged mech. Small parts still littered the space beside Optimus's leg, waiting to be reassembled and reinstalled, and the list of things in the medic's mind that he needed to fabricate and replace was a very long one. For now this would do, though.

Pumping in a fresh batch of chemicals to block the mech's pain receptors, Ratchet extended a teardrop shaped probe from his fingertip and touched at a hidden contact in his patient's throat. As Optimus's CPU rebooted, wires ticking gently, Ratchet found himself clenching his fists and wondering what to expect. Finally, just as light haloed into the blue optics, he simply slid his hand into the larger mech's and waited.

Optimus didn't move, which somehow surprised the medic. He'd expected him to jerk, flinch, try to get away from a familiar assailant following the trauma that brought about these grotesque injuries. Instead his optics widened, narrowed, finally settled on a wide but dim glow and focussed on the medic's anxious face with a slow turn of his head. Then, unbelievably, he smiled, though it was not a happy arrangement of his plates.

Ratchet found himself scowling, hand tightening around the other mech's. "Do I even need to start telling you how stupid you are?" He regretted the words immediately but Optimus's expression didn't change.

"The war is over, Ratchet," he said softly, vocal processor slurring over the hard sounds in the name. His gaze drifted to the ceiling, fans suddenly beginning to whir. "The war is over. I never thought I'd say it."

"At some cost," Ratchet drawled, flickering the lights on his chassis as he watched the roaming optics. They didn't change, dilated and regardless of their surroundings. The medic suppressed a sigh as he mentally added 'shock' to the list of system grievances, though he wasn't surprised. It had been a kind of miracle that Optimus hadn't gone into a stasis lock by now.

_Ironhide, get down here. _

_Is he alright?_

_He's lucid and in shock, perhaps disorientated. I don't know if he remembers what's happened, and I don't want to be on my own with him when I ask to find out._

_I'll be right there._

Optimus shifted on the berth, freezing with a hiss when the parts held frozen by the arch grinded against areas that were already hurting. He looked back to Ratchet. "Where's 'Hide?"

"On his way," Ratchet replied at an equal volume. "You're in the Medbay. I've completed the majority of your repairs but there's still some work to do. I wanted to talk to you before much more time passed, though."

The energon drip chirped an increase in uptake as Optimus found some new strength, bringing a hand to his face and rubbing his optics with a frown. "About what?"

Ratchet grimaced and looked to the door, tank sinking when no one stepped in at that very moment. To Optimus, he replied, "I'm taking you off duty for the near future. Prowl will take over command – and as you said, we're not at war anymore. It'll be an easy job."

Another chirp and the mech's jaw tightened. "I don't need time off, Ratchet. I'm fine."

Since the tender approach wasn't working, Ratchet relaxed back into his usual bedside manner. He scoffed. "I'd beg to differ, Prime. This is going to take time to recover from. You don't-"

"I knew what I was doing."

Ratchet stilled at the strong tone, the same which Optimus had issued orders with and led them into battle under. The wide optics brightened, focussing, though they remained wide and trembling at the edges. He waited.

Optimus released a hard blast through his vents, gaze averted. "Do not treat me like I'm some kind of victim. Megatron lay down his terms and I agreed to them. That is all."

The medic raised a deeply sceptical brow as the seal on the doors hissed before they opened. "You're not going to get that to fly with me, or anyone for that matter."

"I'm a soldier, Ratchet. Prime," he replied flatly, irritation bristling in his tone over a low, throbbing tremble. Not quite hiding it. "I've given orders that have resulted in hundreds of deaths, witnessed our war killing members of a species that had nothing to do with it, and now I've brought about peace without a single life being lost."

"I'd beg to differ," Ratchet utterly softly, mouth twitching downwards.

Optimus only glanced to him at that before turning his head away again, jaw tight. Without warning he slipped his hand from the medic's and touched his finial, optics brightening with the quick transmission.

"Talking to Ironhide?" Ratchet passed a hand over the area in a sensor sweep, disconcerted that the mech had to activate his transmitter manually. More burnt out circuits, trauma induced. He suppressed a snapped remark that Optimus was even forcing it.

"Calling Prowl down," Optimus replied, hand moving back down to the berth and tensing as he tried to push himself up. The intensity of pain overrode the suppressants pumping through his systems and he gave up quickly with a groan, further encouraged by Ratchet's hand pressing down on his grill and the accompanying glare. He quirked a brow. "You've relieved me of duty. He needs to be told about the peace agreement."

Ratchet cocked his head, optics still narrowed. "And the rest?"

Optimus smiled grimly. "Patient confidentiality, or as much as I can keep from him. Your processor's tied, though."

The medic grunted. "Damn you to the Pit, Prime."

"Almost there already," came the soft reply, almost unheard over the sound of his vents.


	4. Chapter 4

Quits

_Chapter Four_

Silence dragged out, Optimus unwilling to speak further and Ratchet patiently waiting for him to do so anyway. He did not waste the time, though, moving back to the arch curving over the mech's shattered pelvis to continue the small-scale calibrations of the parts he'd already repaired and replaced.

Optimus lowered his hand from where it had brushed across his jaw, fingers rattling. Even with the pain suppressants clogging up his neural lines he could feel that there was a lot amiss in that area, but then he'd expected as much. At least the white hot agony was gone, replaced with a dull ache that spiked rhythmically from the vibration of a coolant pump. He felt strangely hollow, and peripherally he noted the area of small dented and sheared parts lined along the berth. "How bad?"

Ratchet's optics flickered to him, fingers pausing over the controls. "It wouldn't have been so bad if so many of your lines hadn't ruptured. You dried out, Optimus, and slagging ground up everything that was already damaged. That… thing that Megatron used went in deep. You were lucky you could walk."

"No choice. Had to get back." Shadows flickered across his optics, a visual ghost from his processor echoing something that he never wanted to look over again. Optimus shuttered them, temporarily dispelling the image. Ratchet clicked softly at him, drawing him back out. "How much have you left to do?"

"Physically?" Ratchet grunted with a raised brow, though his expression softened into a more solemn arrangement of plates. "A few servos need to be completely replaced, and your transformation lines and cogs have all had to be removed. I've completed repairs on your critical systems, though, and replaced your interface unit. You'll be taking it easy for a few weeks but I can discharge you tomorrow afternoon."

"Thank you," Optimus replied softly, finding that his overactive processor was making quick work of tallying everything Ratchet had said against the memory burned into his chips. It was going to take some time to suppress that, he accepted with a sigh, but it would be a lot easier when it wasn't being talked about anymore. Considering the medic again, he decided that convincing him to just forget about the whole incident wasn't going to happen very quickly.

The sound of the door seals hissing apart cut off his thoughts as Ironhide arrived within minutes of Ratchet's summons. Upon seeing him, the medic roughly collected his equipment and moved about the bay to put the instruments back in their rightful places. The dark mech gave him a slight nod of gratitude as they crossed paths, and then Ironhide was standing over Optimus on the berth and the sphere of his attention shrank dramatically.

Optimus shifted fractionally, optics narrowing. :Don't look at me like that. I'm fine.:

The dark mech snorted. :Yeah right. Try that with someone you're not bonded to.: He slipped his undamaged hand about a wrist guard, which turned out to be the 'wrong' one from this angle.

Optimus shifted to see what his sparkmate was hiding, brow twitching fractionally. :I hope that's not from a Decepticon.:

:I wish: came the soft reply, weariness and overwhelming relief in seeing the mech awake and coherent overshadowing his frustration. He'd only made a rudimentary repair on his hand and it still throbbed, but it was the furthest thing from his mind. :How're you feeling?:

:Sore: Optimus replied after a moment's consideration. His optics flickered, head shifting to regard the medic standing away from them but doubtless listening intently. :But not as bad as Ratchet is acting. Another day under his ministrations and I'll be fine.:

Ironhide arched a brow, vents cycling with a rattle. :I don't reckon it's the physical that's got him worried. Pit, it's not what I'm worrying about.:

A buzz down the bond, the only indicator of his feelings as his body remained still, though Ironhide didn't even need that to know what the mech was feeling. :'Hide, I got hurt, no worse than you or I have been many times already during this war. After the Fallen I've seen any fight that I didn't die during as a good one.: There was a hollow ring to the words where humour should have been.

:There's gettin' your chassis split open and then there's…: A pained glance down to where the arch hummed over the mech's body. :This. This is beyond anything you should have endured. It weren't an act of war that he did to you. This wasn't fighting. This was personal, Optimus, and I don't.: Ironhide grimaced again, finger's tightening about the hand they encased. He had to force the rest from his reluctant processor. :I don't think you can see that yet.:

Optimus's optics brightened, plates shifting a little behind the facemask. Ironhide mused how this was the first time since they'd shifted from friendship into a relationship that he'd kept the barrier in place when it was just the two of them speaking. The significance of it was not lost on him, but he declined to comment. Anything Optimus may have formulated by way of a response to the soft, concerned accusation was cut off by the door opening again.

Ironhide kept his hand with Optimus's as he turned to face the door, suppressing a groan to see it was Prowl. "Ratch," he started in a drawl, turning narrowed optics on the medic.

Ratchet shot him an irritated look. "I called for him to come down later. It was Prime who summoned him down now."

"I can come back at a better time," Prowl offered, though everything about his stance and the way his optics roved over the commander's prone form indicated his great reluctance to.

"It's fine, Prowl. Come in." Optimus shifted and Ironhide wordlessly moved to stand on the other side of him, retaking his hand once he had an unobstructed view of the approaching mech. "As you've no doubt heard, the war with the Decepticons is over."

Prowl nodded, plates knitting together with a frown when he came to stand opposite Ironhide over the berth. The arch obscured his view of where he suspected the damage keeping Prime in here to be, and he found the presence of the unfamiliar equipment disconcerting. "Yes, Ironhide told me, though he declined to give me the details of how this auspicious event came about. Only that you were confined to the Medbay and medically relieved of duty."

"Yes," Optimus confirmed with a low sound, gaze shifting to Ratchet. The medic had moved to stand by the arch, fingers touching lightly over its surface as he made adjustments to the fields. Mercifully, Optimus found that he couldn't feel any effects from the tampering, and returned his attention to Prowl. "Megatron had elected to settle the conflict privately between us, and I agreed to what he wanted in exchange for an end to hostilities."

Ironhide's canons twitching didn't escape Prowl's attention, though he only registered the agitated fidget peripherally. "And what did he want?"

Optimus's optics flickered, processor jerking to find an answer to the direct question. The silence that unintentionally grew only made the sensation swirling in his near-empty tanks worse. Ironhide's fingers tightened about his. "A personal victory," he replied at last, the words obviously measured.

Ironhide scoffed and Ratchet growled under his vents, drawing a deeper frown from the tactician. "What in Primus does that mean? He tortured you?"

"Definitely," Ratchet murmured, hands still shifting over the arch with quiet clicks.

"It doesn't matter what he wanted, only that it was given and the fighting has stopped," Optimus snapped, surprising all three mechs. Optics narrowed, he fixed Prowl with a stare that left no room for disagreement. "I will inform the human government as liaison tomorrow as soon as Ratchet has released me from the Medbay. Whilst his order for me to remain off-duty is in effect, you are to monitor the Decepticon forces' neutralisation and ascertain what their wishes for the future are from this point. Understood?"

"Yes Sir," Prowl replied with a curt nod, waiting until Optimus's gaze shifted to Ironhide before looking to the medic. To the unspoken questions, Ratchet's mouth twisted and his hands flicked out helplessly. Prowl motioned with his head for them to move away from the berth, padding a little distance away. The low mingled sound of their voices was dominated by the tactician, Ratchet's responses coming more hesitantly.

Ironhide was as ignorant of the exchange as his sparkmate was, curiosity finally getting the better of him. Through their bond and the contact of their hands, he ran a weak scan and grunted an exhale at the results. :Ratchet's got a lot left to do.:

:It's rude to pry,: Optimus chided softly, bringing his free hand up to rub at his optics. :At least that went better than I'd hoped."

:Don't count on Prowler giving up that easy,: Ironhide warned. :He'll dig until he gets his answers.:

:Which will not happen quickly: Optimus replied, fingers still over his optics. Though the searing pain pulsing through his abdomen was severe, the residual tingle around his spark chamber was a colder sensation dominating his thoughts. Megatron's fingers about his spark, sliding into the intimacies of his soul, one hand pinning his above his head whilst his body shifted, sawing. A rattle of metal against his face caused him to realise that his hand was shaking. He clenched it into a fist and rested it on his grill, looking up to Ironhide's concerned optics again.

Before he could say anything, a sharp series of clicks from Ratchet drew his attention back to Prowl. Apparently the tactician had acquired all the information that Ratchet was going to give him, and now Prowl approached the berth again. Rather than speaking to Optimus, he looked to Ironhide. "For the next week I'll want all assigned guardians to remain with their charges in case of a backlash from those within the Decepticon faction whom may not accept the peace order."

Ironhide nodded with the curt acceptance of a soldier. "I'll inform Lennox when I escort him to his domicile."

"Good." Prowl looked down to Optimus, mouth a set line. "Prime, it would be preferable if you could manage communications with Earth's governments. You have been the primary Autobot contact for them, and know the subtleties of their processes."

"And the specifics of our future will need to be discussed with them after speaking with the Autobots," Optimus added smoothly. "With the war over and Earth no longer under threat, the conditions of our sanctuary have dissolved. If we wish to remain on this planet, if only for a few decades to ensure the peace, arrangements will have to be negotiated."

"Agreed." Prowl's head cocked, mouth quirking with the ghost of a smile. "Would you like the honour of telling them?"

Optimus smiled a little. "Thank you, Prowl, but they deserve to know as soon as possible. Certainly the celebrations will begin immediately."

"No doubt." A glance to Ratchet as if to see if the medic had changed his mind as to how much to disclose. Frosty optics met his gaze, a brow twitching up in warning, and Prowl straightened. "I'll inform Bumblebee of the renewal of his active guardianship and up patrols for the next forty-eight hours. Protocol dictates that there will be a further meeting to negotiate territories and defensive armaments between the previously warring factions, so we should remain vigilant for the Decepticon representative."

Ironhide sensed more than saw his sparkmate's mounting weariness, answering on his behalf. "Sounds good, Prowler. We'll leave the Doc to his work and get started on all that."

"I'll contact you when I release Prime," Ratchet announced to both, moving to stand almost possessively at the head of the berth. To further underline his point, he tapped the teardrop probe from his wrist into the pit of the mech's collarbone, turning his rapidly dimming optics dark in recharge. He spoke again without looking up. "Prowl, I'll tell you that this was an assault, and one that will leave lasting damage. Beyond that you don't need to know the specifics, and my order overrules yours when it comes to trying to get answers out of Ironhide. Is that understood?"

Prowl was still for a moment before giving a short nod. "Of course, but if that information should become significant for me to know, we shall revisit this debate." With that he turned on his heel and stalked out of the Medbay, though not before hearing the medic's closing remark.

"You can try." Ratchet touched a hand to Ironhide's elbow, getting his attention. "I'll keep him under until I'm finished, now, which should be tomorrow afternoon. You can't help for now."

Ironhide's optics were level on his. "Think you can? Beyond this, Ratch'," he added with a gesture of his hand.

Ratchet's mouth twitched in a grimace. "I'm not a counsellor, Ironhide, and I never claimed to be."

A rough snort. "You're the closest thing we've got unless the right Autobot comes crashing in."

"I'm out of my league," Ratchet replied simply, no embarrassment or frustration in the statement. "A forced spark merge I know how to deal with. Frag, Prime will have had the same information in his processor as a commander to spot the after-effects of it. But what Megatron did – the specifics of it, that's completely alien to me. To us as a species. It was a very human attack nailed onto the back of a long and violent history of them trying to offline each other, a history that only ended because he apparently submitted himself to this act."

"Not 'apparently'," Ironhide snapped. "Did - and he forced himself to for our sake."

"I'm not disputing the point of consent, here," Ratchet soothed with a raised hand. His shoulders sagged a little. "From a psychological standpoint I can't even begin to extrapolate how that will effect him, let alone how to treat it."

"It'd be a start if he'd admit that he's not 'okay'," he dark mech groused, folding his arms and regarded his unconscious sparkmate.

Ratchet nodded, watching Ironhide stare. "Yes, but it's very early days now. He'll recover at his own pace, though we'll both have to be vigilant in stopping him from writing off what's happened as unimportant. From trying to make us forget about it."

"Believe me," Ironhide replied with darkening optics, "I'm never going to forget this."


	5. Chapter 5

Quits

_Chapter Five_

Epps had been as lost as he was for an explanation as to Ironhide's behaviour in the yard, and Lennox hadn't been able to find Bumblebee since leaving him with the scarred mech to find out. How you lost a huge yellow robot was beyond him, but then most of the Autobots could demonstrate great stealth when they didn't want to be seen. Except for the Twins. Skids and Mudflap seemed to want everyone to know where they were all the time.

Some sleuthing had turned up that Optimus had returned to the Base after a meeting with Megatron that hadn't been cleared with NEST, and had remained out of sight since. That much hadn't been hard to find out, as their commander's whereabouts and condition was the main topic of gossip amongst the Bots for that day. The few that Lennox suspected would have some answers had been keeping a low profile, and he didn't dare contact Simmons to see if he knew what was going on. If Optimus wanted this off the human's radar for the time being, then he'd trust him with that secrecy.

But then another rumour had torn through the Base, leaving disbelief giving way to wild exuberance in its wake. The war that NEST had played a minor role in for barely two years and the Autobots for millions, at the cost of their homeworld and most of their kind, was over. The Cybertronians were at peace, and not from the obliteration of one faction. The 'how' was a mystery. Prowl had only told the Autobots that Optimus had managed to negotiate a truce with Megatron, which the Twins were spinning out into a tale of how Prime had finally snapped and installed Starscream into Megatron's exhaust, threatening to add Soundwave if he didn't' surrender.

Lennox remained very dubious about the whole thing, even though his own men were starting to join in with the Autobot's celebrations. Peace meant humanity was no longer in danger – certainly worth buying out the six nearest off-licenses over. However most of the High Grade was being locked away until all the bots scattered on missions across the globe had returned for what Bumblebee had promised would be a party like the sun was going nova.

Their happiness was contagious and he was genuinely ecstatic for them, but something was definitely amiss. Ratchet was refusing all requests to see Optimus and had been locked up in the Medbay all day; Prowl was impossible to read but he didn't seem anywhere near as delighted as everyone else; and Ironhide, whom Lennox had expected to be the one to break into Prowl's office and liberate the High Grade for himself and everyone else, had silently shut himself in his room.

He'd been so engrossed in his thoughts as he crossed the yard to his loaned car that he didn't recognise the powerful engine coming up behind him until the vehicle had swept about to stop in front of him. Lennox grinned. "Hey Ironhide. Offering me a ride?"

The thick black door swung open by way of an answer. Ironhide waited until Lennox had slung his gear into the passenger footwell and fastened his seatbelt behind the wheel before moving off, activating his vocal processor to speak but shutting it off again just as quickly. Lennox sat through the silence, hands resting lightly on the bottom of the wheel whilst he waited for the Autobot to say something. He was tempted to offer his congratulations on the end of the war that had been going on for longer than life on Earth has existed but thought better of it. Whatever was really going on behind the celebrations obviously hadn't put Ironhide in a talking mood. After twenty minutes the brooding silence had become uncomfortable so he reached for the radio, frowning when every station came through garbled and hissing with static.

"Sorry," Ironhide mumbled before apparently fixing something with the aerial, the music sharpening immediately.

Lennox tapped his thumbs on the wheel. "It's alright. Something on your mind, 'Hide? You seem distracted."

Ironhide was silent a moment before flatly informing, "I'll be watching over you whilst you're away from the base for the following week."

Lennox shifted in the seat, looking up to the vehicle's sun visor. He'd become one of a handful of humans that occasionally needed a guardian since making himself recognisable to the Decepticons by helping to offline them. Sam and Mikaela shared Bumblebee, Epps occasionally got Sideswipe parked behind his house and he got Ironhide. Living five miles away from the nearest house meant that the mech didn't need to sit in his alt form very often, leaving plenty of time for trading war stories and generally talking. Sarah wasn't particularly pleased with the idea of them needing a huge, heavily-armed robot to guard them from time to time, but conceded that it was better to have Ironhide around if Optimus suspected that the Decepticons were in the mood for personal attacks than not.

That and the Autobot leader had confided that looking after a human family would be 'good' for Ironhide, though Lennox hadn't quite figured out how yet.

In the end, he simply commented, "you've not been on guard duty for a while. "

"Prowl's orders," Ironhide replied simply, revving in a shrug.

Which meant Optimus wasn't technically in command at the moment, Lennox concluded with a frown. "He's worried that Megatron won't honour the peace agreement?"

"He'll honour it," the mech replied in a low, clipped tone, his engine sinking into a much throatier growl. "Prowl's being cautious in case Starscream or another bot makes a rogue attack, but I don't believe you have anything to worry about."

Lennox nodded. If Ironhide was confident that nothing was going to happen, then likely nothing would. Not only was the mech a very skilled soldier, but he'd demonstrated a very accurate nuts-and-bolts sense for trouble. "Still," he drawled, sitting back and dropping his hands into his lap now that they'd reached the more barren stretch of the journey, "I'll feel a lot safer one I've heard all this from Optimus. Not that I don't trust Prowl's judgement, but I've known the Boss longer."

Thunderous silence from Ironhide.

Lennox glanced down and noticed that the needles on the mech's gauges were twitching. "I heard he was in the Medbay," he went on cautiously.

More silence. They were speeding quite dramatically now, and Lennox got the impression that Ironhide wanted to get to the house as quickly as possible to dump him out on the driveway so he could stalk off and brood.

"Is he okay?"

No response.

He rolled his eyes. Now that he could see his house, Lennox decided to just go for it. "Is this anything to do with why you were punching a crater in the yard yesterday?"

"Yes and no." Ironhide's voice after a lengthy pause actually made his human passenger jump. In a gruffer tone, he continued, "that was… personal stuff." Pulling into the driveway, he opened the door for his charge to get out before running a quick scan of the area. Confirming them to be alone, he transformed into his kneeling bipedal form. Inside the house he detected that the female and infant were asleep and hushed his engine accordingly.

A puzzled and very curious expression had captured the human's features. Lennox adjusted the strap of his bag over his shoulder as he looked up to the sombre mech. "Didn't know you had 'personal stuff.' I mean, yeah, of course you do. Sorry, that was a really stupid thing to say. You've just never talked about anything outside of blowing up Cons and old war stories."

Ironhide nodded fractionally, accepting the assessment and waiting for the man to bid him goodnight and go into his home as he usually did on the occasions when he brought him home. But Lennox lingered, nothing about his stance suggesting that he was going to go inside but rather that he was waiting for the mech to respond and expand upon his reckless admission.

He knew perfectly well that he'd been stewing all day, but then there had been nothing else for him to do. Ratchet had banned him from the Medbay until Optimus's repairs were complete, and he'd wanted nothing to do with the celebrations taking place in every hanger and corridor. But his solitary brooding hadn't gotten him anywhere aside from sick to his tanks.

Lennox's hand touching his foot brought him out of his reverie. "Come on, 'Hide. What's eating you like this?"

Ironhide was silent for almost a whole minute before his hydraulics hissed out a fraction of the tension in his frame. "It's Optimus," he replied flatly, slowly moving off towards the free-standing garage and sitting down against its wall facing the house. It was his usual spot when staying overnight, though Lennox always made a point of leaving enough space for the Topkick in the garage should it rain whilst he was here.

Lennox followed and waited for the mech to tuck his body to fit, one leg bent as if to sit cross-legged and the other knee rising to rest an arm on. He climbed to sit on the side of Ironhide's foot, leaving the bag on the floor. "What about Optimus?"

Ironhide shifted, cannons whirring softly as they spun in and out at a sluggish, unconscious speed. Bright optics stared at his curled hands as if he was holding something. "I'm worried about him. I won't speak of the details, but this peace cost him, and I don't think he's going to talk to me about it."

He'd be hard-pressed to deny that that answer surprised him, and Lennox shifted to get more comfortable on the complex arrangement of plates that made up the side of Ironhide's foot. "I hate to be blunt here, but why should he?"

Optics framed with dark metal flecked with white 'scars' shifted to meet his gaze, and Ironhide smiled just a little. Though it had never really been a secret, he and Optimus hadn't been flagrant with their bond either. It simply wasn't in their programming to make their private lives otherwise, which meant that those who didn't see them often – like the NEST soldiers - simply weren't aware. "He's my sparkmate."

Lennox blinked, sensing that he'd just been handed a very significant chunk of information but drawing a blank as to what it actually meant. "Your what?"

"Sparkmate. We are bonded." Ironhide nodded towards the house. "Similar to your relationship with Sarah Lennox."

The human sat back so much that he slipped a little on the dark metal, managing to catch himself before he slid right off. "Whoa. I had no idea." He suddenly found himself seeing the mech in a new light. No longer was this just a robot who disguised himself as a Topkick and specialised in blowing up targets in a spectacularly devastating fashion. This was a being that felt beyond the satisfaction of a job well done or anger over a mission gone south, and the affirmation made Lennox smile. "Ironhide, man, how long?"

Ironhide ran a finger down his cheek, tapping his jaw. "We've been bonded for a year, but together in a similar capacity since a few weeks after his resurrection." A thin, bittersweet smile. "Optimus offlining solidified a few things."

"Yeah, I'll bet," Lennox replied with a chuckle, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He couldn't help but think back on the times he'd seen Ironhide with the Autobot leader over the last year, trying to remember any kind of giveaway that they were romantically involved. It seemed they'd been very good at being discrete. "So, uh, what's happened?"

"I… do not wish to disclose it," Ironhide murmured with no small amount of unease, knowing that this opportunity of an impartial listener may not present itself again but finding his processor too tangled up and bogged down with his own feelings to 'talk' as Ratchet had suggested. As a compromise, he added, "Not right now, anyway. But I am worried about him."

Lennox nodded, understanding. Admitting that anything was bothering him was a big deal for Ironhide, and it would take a bit longer for him to be able to outright say what it was let alone enter a real discussion about it. Quite clearly, though, it was serious, and somehow the circumstances of this peace deal were very personal.

He regarded his guardian seriously. "When you want to talk about it, let me know, alright?"

Ironhide shunted air through his vents in a soft grunt of agreement, head twitching fractionally in a nod. "I will. Thank you, Captain Lennox."

A wry grin. "Hey, just Will around here, remember? And with the war over I don't know if there's even going to be a NEST after a few weeks, so we might not be seeing each other in a military capacity anyway."

Ironhide's head bowed a little, optics darkening at the edges. "A lot can happen in a short space of time."

"Amen to that." Sensing that the conversation had come to a close, Lennox slid down off of the mech's foot and picked up his duffel bag. "G'night Ironhide. And I'm sorry that you're stuck in my garden every night this week and not with Optimus."

"Me too," Ironhide replied softly, optics flickering up. "Goodnight Will."


	6. Chapter 6

Quits

_Chapter Six_

Optimus hadn't exactly 'escaped' the Base, but he certainly hadn't left with Ratchet's blessing or knowledge. Brought back online repaired and with full tanks just after noon, he'd been discharged from the Medbay and left to return to his shared quarters with Ironhide. They had a few hours before he was due to speak to the Earth authorities, and it had been an unspoken decision to spend them together quietly.

The celebrations still ringing out across the Base were loud, though, with sudden bursts of sound making the Prime's processor skip though he wouldn't admit it. Wheeljack had returned from Japan that morning and upon hearing about the peace agreement had decided to make fireworks for the upcoming party. That particular corner of the base had been evacuated but no one had tried to deter him from his colourfully explosive project.

They'd left the Medbay and headed straight for the bluff that curved around one end of the Base, casually stepping over the razor-wire fence and the soldiers that patrolled it. Though instinct was keeping him hovering, Ironhide was forcing himself to leave a respectful amount of space between himself and his sparkmate. On the bluff, they both stood looking back down on the Base, smiling when a new _bang_ sounded from Wheeljack's hanger, sending a carpet of red smoke out from the doors.

"Going to be a big party next week," Ironhide commented, glancing to the taller mech. "All of NEST is coming, and Sam and Mikaela are sleeping over in Bee's room."

"If anyone sleeps," Optimus replied, folding his arms. "I'm sure it'll be a night to remember." Noticing again the space between them, he sighed a little and sidestepped to close the gap. With their arms almost touching, he rocked to make brief contact and to draw Ironhide's attention. "You don't have to do that, you know. I'm fine."

A rattling growl and Ironhide's hands tightened into fists, his body twisting to regard the mech. "Don't give me that slag. None of this is 'fine' and you can't act like nothing happened." He shook his head, cannons flashing. "How can I help if you won't let me anywhere near it?"

Optimus paused with narrowed optics, tensing from the stale heat that was pouring through their bond. When he spoke it was in a forcibly calm tone, seeking to soothe down Ironhide's bearings. "'Hide, I don't need help because I'm at peace with what happened. It was my decision, my choice to allow it to end the war, and I'm… grateful that it was me."

Ironhide's optics shuttered, fans catching as the motors that spun them briefly cut out. "What does that mean?" he murmured, his voice weakened by the deeply unsettling admission.

Averted optics, and Optimus frowned. "If Megatron had demanded anyone else – Ratchet, Bumblebee, you – I could never allow it. Knowing that he'd done this to one of you would be far worse than anything I'm experiencing now, so I'm grateful." He lay a hand on a broad shoulder, thumbing the slick metal. "Ironhide, the cost of peace is always high, and I was prepared to pay it. I've no right to complain now that it's been achieved."

Ironhide's optics flashed, feeling as if the ground had just been taken out from under him. This was the major core of the problem, and it was far worse than Optimus just trying to live up to the mantel of an unflappable leader. He was struggling, unconsciously displayed through his uncertain parts and the heightened anxiety that threaded like wire along their bond, but he also truly believed that he wasn't entitled to show it. That what he'd done was somehow a reasonable thing to have given for this victory.

He felt caught between an urge to smack him for trying to be this selfless, and hold him because he'd been ground down after so many years of fighting to feel that he had to be. Settling for the latter, Ironhide placed his hand on the one on his shoulder and ran it up the long arm, stepping forwards to pull the thinner mech into him. He froze when Optimus took a jerky step back, head dipping as if internally berating himself for doing so.

Ironhide backed off, trying to ignore the sharp cracks along the bond. "Yeah, you're fine," he groused, shifting his weight awkwardly.

Optimus grimaced, vents coughing a hot exhale. :I'm sorry.:

Somehow, that hurt more. :Don't be. You've got nothing to be sorry for.:

Optimus turned to put his back to the Base, armour flaring as his processor hummed. He'd been feeling a burning need to apologise for what had happened, and subsequently for the way things were now, since Ironhide and Ratchet had come for him near the Nemesis. This was his first opportunity to voice it, and so he continued despite Ironhide's objection. :I hurt you. I should have forced the bond shut when it was happening. But, I needed you. Needed your support.:

Ironhide shifted his weight fractionally, the question he'd been asking himself since first seeing the injuries and then realizing what had happened to cause them returning to the forefront of his mind :Would you have told me what happened if you had?:

The answer came softly. :I honestly don't know.:

A nod, appreciating the honesty. :I figured.:

Silence stretched out between them, feeling cavernous in the absence of everything that needed to be voiced but wasn't. Finally Optimus refocused his optics and looked to the darker mech. :I'll understand if you wish to discontinue this.:

Ironhide bristled and the bond pulsed with love, bewilderment and offense. :Frag's sake, Optimus, never. Don't ever think that again. My spark's yours.:

Optimus smiled, though faintly. :As mine is yours.: He ran a hand over his optics, wishing once again that the maelstrom of thoughts and feelings running rampant through his processor would come together and make some kind of sense. :I'm sorry, but I wasn't sure if you'd want it after Megatron touched it.:

:You're not tainted,: Ironhide assured softly, hand twitching with a want to reach for him again but remaining by his side.

The Autobot leader nodded and refrained from commenting that he'd already had that drilled into him. It was one of the recurring themes of the guides Ratchet had highlighted whilst he was in forced recharge, along with the affirmation that it wasn't his fault. As appreciated as the effort was and despite his existing familiarity with the documents, they weren't that useful. They were principally focussed on the aftercare of a forced spark merge, which he hadn't experienced, and of forced spark exposure, which though it had been an aspect hadn't been Megatron's focus in the act.

What made his parts feel cold and clogged his systems was what had caused the physical damage, which wasn't covered. Megatron had called him a fleshling whore and gone to great lengths to treat him like one, a humiliation tactic that was devastatingly original and doubtless the product of great consideration. Secretly, it had frightened him as much as it had shamed him.

He and Megatron had always been a frustratingly close match in combat – their strength and endurance frequently isolating them from everyone else in a conflict. When they fought, only they fought, and after so many millennia they had come to learn every nuanced movement and could anticipate the sensation of every incoming blow to any part of their bodies. Their battles had become habitual – deadly, but familiar ground. Though he'd always maintained a healthy respect for the Decepticon's abilities, he wasn't afraid of him.

But led on Megatron's berth, his very protoform torn open and penetrated in a mockery of intimacy from the species he'd been fighting to protect, the pain so intimate and intense that when he'd fleetingly thought that, no, he couldn't do this, he'd been powerless to stop it, he had been afraid. It shamed him now to think of it, just as much as the knowledge that if Ironhide hadn't been present in his mind, selflessly coaxing him towards the forced overload that Megatron demanded for it to be over, he'd have broken his word and allowed the war to go on for the sake of himself shamed him. Having Megatron touch his spark he could have dealt with alone. Having Megatron 'fuck' him he couldn't, and it hung like a noose around his neck. He had no idea of how to process that aside from burying it, which no one was allowing him to do.

But Ironhide wanted to help, he reaffirmed to himself with a sideways glance to the watchful mech. Needed to help for his own sake as much as theirs as a bonded couple. Unfortunately, he concluded, he didn't know if he could let him. At least not yet.

His finial chirped with a communication from Prowl, and with their bond this open Ironhide heard it too, straightening. Optimus offered a slight smile, trying to be reassuring after the lengthy silence as he'd immersed himself in his thoughts. _Go ahead, Prowl._

_Soundwave has announced himself as the Decepticon representative_, Prowl said flatly, giving nothing away as to his surprise that it wasn't Megatron himself. _He's come alone and requested permission to approach the Base._

_Permission granted_, Optimus replied, mirroring Ironhide's arched brow and turning to look in the direction of the distant Nemesis. _Has he specifically requested that I meet him alone?_

"Not a fragging chance," Ironhide grumbled, earning a stern click from his superior.

_Negative. He's closing in on your location now._ A pause and the tactician's tone turned arch. _Does Ratchet know you've left the Base?_

Optimus rolled his optics, picking up Soundwave on his long-range scanner and estimating him to be twenty minutes away. _Go check on Wheeljack, Prowl. Over and out._

* * *

Soundwave was an imposing presence even in solitude, the multitude of insect-like protruding blades and cables constantly shifting as they absorbed and processed every signal that passed within their electronic reach. His faceplates were remarkably still in comparison, his sharp optics focussed on Optimus as if Ironhide's barely-unpowered canons were of no consequence.

Standing at the base of the bluff that the Autobots had descended to meet him, Soundwave bypassed all pleasantries. "Soundwave requests that Optimus Prime delineates the peace agreement."

Optimus and Ironhide exchanged a brief glance, brows furrowed, and the commander responded, "I don't understand."

"End to hostilities is illogical in its suddenness, and has remained inadequately unexplained." The blue mech extended a hand to indicate pointedly to Optimus. "Outline what has been exchanged for peace for confirmation."

The big mech shifted his stance, shoulders squaring as his posture tensed in obvious and outright refusal. "Megatron and I agreed to end the war, and we are bound to uphold that agreement. How it came about is of no consequence."

"Incorrect."

Optimus's jaw tightened behind the now-constantly present faceplate. "Do any Decepticons wish to request asylum to remain on this planet?"

"Irrelevant. Explain the negotiation."

Ironhide growled, canons cycling with hard clicks. Optimus didn't break Soundawave's scrutinizing stare. "Will the Decepticon forces fighting the Autobot outposts withdraw to formerly established territories?"

"Irrelevant. Explain the negotiation."

"This is all relevant," Optimus replied, resisting the urge to pinch between his optics. "The details of how we are to proceed from the end of the war must be outlined."

Soundwave took another step forward, reducing the distance between them to barely an arm's reach. "Explain, or we cannot continue."

Ironhide looked between both tall mechs with mounting uncertainty in his bearings. He'd never liked dealing with Soundwave in any capacity, finding the bot's cold logic, keen intelligence and unwavering resolve a dangerous mix. Where Starscream was rash and opened himself to make mistakes, Soundwave was thorough and scrutinising. He suspected that the only reason the mech was Megatron's right-hand bot since arriving on Earth was that he would otherwise present as a rival to his command. Soundwave was so single-minded that he would pursue something until he'd obtained it, making the best defence keeping him from wanting something in the first place.

Given the subtle tic in Optimus's trigger finger, he suspected that his sparkmate was thinking the same thing. His tone remained flat and strong, though, when he finally spoke.

"No."

Soundwave did not move, as if he hadn't heard the firm refusal. Then, without a trace of emotion, he replied, "Very well."

Before either Autobot could react, Soundwave lashed out several metal wires that propelled themselves under their own power about Optimus's helm, immediately disabling his movement servos. Soundwave remained unmoved when Ironhide slammed into him, the protrusions from his back extending to ground him whilst the thin tips of the wires skewered into the Prime's processor and began hacking.

Ironhide had heard that Soundwave could hack a bot's processor, but it required such a close range that he'd never witnessed it happen and hadn't been certain if it was anything more than speculation. Seeing blue sparks arc about Optimus's helm and trailing along the extended cables, optics flickering as his processor resisted the invasion, Ironhide cast aside his lack of intel and simply grabbed the wires, intending to pull them off.

From across the connection, the results of Soundwave's hack seared through his processor as one big information package, burning the memory torn from Optimus's mind into his own on its way to the mech before the cables were disconnected seconds later. Ironhide reeled, dropping to one knee and pressing at his helm as his processor instinctively inspected the foreign data, glitching at the results. Optimus stumbled out of the movement lock, hands coming to his own helm as his legs weakened. Soundwave ignored them both, passively combing over the information he had retrieved.

Finally, his droned voice spoke. "Circumstances understood. Soundwave apologises for the neural invasion, but had deemed it necessary."

There was nothing but the sounds of their vents for a moment, fans spinning spasmodically as both mechs forced the speeds of their processors to calm. Optimus forced his mind to blank, shunting aside the sensory replay that Soundwave had forced when he'd accessed the memory. Steeling himself, he looked up to the mech patiently waiting for him to respond. "Satisfied?"

The protrusions that Soundwave had jutted into the ground to keep himself stationary against Ironhide's attack retracted quietly. "No."

Optimus braced a hand on his knee and forced himself upright, his disbelief barely hidden behind the mask. "No?"

"Method for acquisition of peace deemed unorthodox, unnecessary and unbeneficial." A fast series of vibrations and clicks before his optics refocused. "Soundwave confirms that there will be no further hostilities towards Autobots or the inhabitants of this primitive planet. Munitions and Decepticons will return to the Nemesis. Forces elsewhere will be ordered to stand down. Four Decepticons have vocalised an inclination to remain, otherwise the evacuation of personnel and equipment will be complete in six solar rotations."

Marshalling his twitching systems, now beginning to rattle noticeably from the residual burn of the hack and the fact that Soundwave had a copy of the horrific event, Optimus forced himself to focus on the task at hand. "Where will you go?"

Sounwave seemed to consider that for a moment. "Unknown. Options for decolonisation restricted due to Energon constraints."

"What about Megatron?" Ironhide asked without any attempt to disguise his tone, mouth twisted.

The Decepticon shifted his optics to answer him. "Unknown, though he will not be permitted to remain."

Ironhide looked to Optimus, noted the bright shimmer in his optics that indicated an overrun processor. To Soundwave, he confirmed on the mech's behalf, "So that's it? The war's over?"

A nod. "Affirmative, though without a victory. An unexpected outcome." Soundwave's head tipped, optics flashing with a brief scan. "Processor invasion caused minimal damage, but repairs should be sought." Then, with as little warning as he had arrived with, he moved away to transform into his aerial form and departed.

Uneasy silence, and Ironhide wrestled with himself not to simply take hold of the taller mech as Optimus continued to stare at some point in the air, optics narrowed and bright. The bond wasn't quite closed, but it was definitely repressed in output from Prime's end. He gave a gentle, mental nudge. :Are you okay?:

Optimus blinked out of his trance and glanced to his sparkmate. :You know, a mech can get sick of that question.: At Ironhide's quirked, concerned smile he sighed, a hand moving to his helm to press at where Soundwave's wires had forced their way inside. :That wasn't pleasant.:

:No: Ironhide agreed softly, both to the mech's discomfort and what he had witnessed. :Come on, let's check it over with Hatchet.:

* * *

_Starscream._

_Go ahead._

_Your suspicions were correct._

_Of course they were. Return to the ship and keep it to yourself._

_Understood._


	7. Chapter 7

Quits

_Chapter Seven_

An engine dramatically more powerful than any that powered a normal rig had allowed Optimus to reach northern California by nightfall. Lassen Peak, a volcano active enough to be given a wide berth but quiet enough to be safe, had been at the top of the list of prospective sites for a permanent base when such a thing was being scouted for its energon-producing potential. It had been the first destination to occur upon leaving the Medbay, and the debacle that speaking to Prowl had quickly turned into.

His processor raced as the last miles tore past, the warm volcano rising into view.

* * *

They were both slow to ascend the rise after Soundwave had left, processors throbbing from the prickling strength of the electrical hack. Optimus could feel Ironhide's optics sliding to him every few seconds, burning with something that looked like pain.

It clicked quite suddenly in his mind that by grasping the hacking wires, Ironhide might have picked up the data being relayed. Even though the look on his sparkmate's face confirmed it, he still had to ask. As much as he didn't want to solidify the terrible truth.

"You saw it, didn't you? What Megatron did."

Ironhide nodded, just barely, and they both paused as he looked to Optimus to make the admission. "Yes."

Vents issuing a trembling sigh, Optimus touched a hand to the dark mech's arm. A simple gesture that conveyed everything that his vocal processor would not, his mouth a hard line behind the impenetrable faceplate. _It's okay. I wish you hadn't seen that because I love you, and I know it hurts you. It hurts me too, but let's pretend it doesn't._ Their bond trembled, quiet, both mechs keen not to transmit their own hurt and stack it on top of their partner's.

Ironhide's mouth opened in the start of an apology only to shut again slowly, optics turning downwards. He laid a hand over the one of his arm, thumbing the broad fingers. _I had no right to see that, and I'm sorry. For everything. I wish I could just fix this for you, but I don't know how._

Millennia knowing each other and intimate upon every level for the last year, they didn't need vocal processors or audio receivers to understand each other. Optimus followed his outstretched arm, his hand shifting up to rest on Ironhide's shoulder, and pulled the mech into him. Foreheads touching, their vents mingled air with close familiarity and he withdrew the mask for the first time since the Nemesis. Ironhide looked up at the sound, seeming faintly surprised when the warm mouth touched his own but sighing into it. It was a chaste kiss, pure and uncluttered by passion or need. Only loaded with unspoken intent. Optimus thumbed the sharp plates of his partner's face. _We'll work this out. I promise._

Ironhide nodded as if real words had been exchanged, reluctantly pulling back to look up the rise to where the Base sat on the other side. Doubtless Prowl would be in the yard, waiting for them to return and tell him how the meeting went. As if on cue, Optimus's finial chirped with an inquiring ping from the tactician. He quirked a brow to the taller mech, mouth twisting into a grim smile. _Might as well get it over with_.

_Agreed._ Optimus squeezed his shoulder before letting go, finally taking the first step back up the hill and hearing Ironhide follow a few moments later. Though it was unsaid, they both knew that the other would be silent until they saw Prowl and had to speak.

* * *

Optimus cringed on his axels again as a pothole sent a fresh spike of pain through his aching parts, engine groaning as he shifted into a lower gear for the climb up through the trees that had grown wide and strong from the volcano's ashes. Already he could feel the rhythm of the magma's energy beneath his wheels, still deep but closer to the surface here than anywhere else he'd been before.

When presenting this site to him, Ratchet had been tentatively excited about how easy it would be to produce real energon from the warm radiation of power seeping up through the ground, and how much better it would be for them than the polluted concoction they'd been living on derived from fossil fuels. That had been a year ago, and yet he'd never visited this place. There was always another Decepticon attack to repel, another portion of the human population in danger, another battle in their seemingly endless war that always took precedence over their need to build a more permanent home here on this planet.

He hadn't expected the site to be this beautiful, as rich visually as it was in passively-emitted power. It even took his thoughts from the mess he'd left behind at the base. Briefly.

* * *

As predicted, Prowl was waiting for them in the yard and fell into step with them as they entered the Base. "How did it go with Soundwave?"

"As straightforwardly as I'd have expected with him as a representative," Optimus replied smoothly. "Though he didn't specify who, he told us that there are four Decepticons who may request asylum to live on this planet but that everyone else, and their munitions, would be gone on the Nemesis in six days."

When they reached the junction in the corridor, he glanced to Ironhide and smiled at the quietly firm optics, obeying the silent command to go left towards the Medbay.

Prowl's optics scanned over both mechs, noting heat from their helms but no obvious bodily trauma. "Why are we seeing Ratchet?"

When Optimus didn't answer and looked to be trying to come up with a plausible excuse, Ironhide huffed an exasperated sound. "Soundwave hacked Optimus."

"Briefly," the tell mech added quickly.

The tactician's jaw fell slack, stunned by the senseless use of such an underhanded and invasive attack. "What in Primus for?"

This time Ironhide didn't speak, waiting Optimus out. He finally replied as they reached the doors to the Medbay. They opened automatically, and Ratchet approached them at the sound. "He… insisted on knowing what happened when Megatron and I negotiated the end to hostilities."

Prowl grunted a scoff, an alien sound from him. "That makes sense, given that I've had half a mind to do the same thing." When Optimus's optics hardened he folded his arms in a subtle sign of submission. "Are you okay?"

"Precisely what I'd like to know," Ratchet chimed in, arching a brow as he stood in the doorway.

"It was a violent hack," Ironhide grumbled in response to both, prodding Optimus in the back to nudge him into the Medbay before stepping inside himself.

Before either mech could say anything, Optimus held up his hands. His voice was firm as he regarded Ratchet, now trying to back him up to a berth with a scanner in one hand. "It was a short hack, the results of which were satisfying enough to Soundwave to swear that the Decepticons are leaving, and I'm suffering no ill effects from it now."

Ironhide's face twisted. "Yeah, like you're suffering no slagging 'ill effects' from the damn 'meeting' in the first place."

"'Hide…"

Ratchet didn't neglect the opportunity, gesturing with the scanner. "Ironhide's right, Prime, and if you'd just be willing to discuss what happened-"

"There is nothing to discuss," Optimus snapped back, regaining a few feet of space from the medic.

"Alright, that's enough," Prowl interjected loudly, optics narrowed as he strode fully into the room. "No more secrets, no more lies, and no more saying that whatever the Autobot commander gave up in the name of peace for the Autobots is unimportant. If it was enough to end the war, it was something worth having, and something of a loss to us."

Optimus's optics turned downcast and Ironhide was seething, giving Prowl the impression that he was on the right path. Ratchet simply shook his head, silently begging for the matter to be dropped.

Prowl looked between them again. "This has gone on long enough, and if you three won't tell me what's happened, I'll conduct my own investigation, and I'm not above hacking any of you if I believe the safety of the Base and the bots in it is under threat. I want to know what's going on, and I want to know right now."

The threat was a sound one. Once Prowl had put his mind to uncovering something, no force less than Primus himself could stop him in the long run. Ironhide exchanged a look with Ratchet, Prime folded his arms but didn't bring his stare from the floor, and Prowl waited five seconds for a response before moving to one of Ratchet's terminals. Two could play the hacking game to get answers.

* * *

The dirt road he'd been following came to an end and he transformed to walk the rest of the way up the mountain. His parts ached, reminding him of Ratchet's warning that he could expect ongoing discomfort for weeks to come until his parts healed and resettled. Reminding him of what had happened to bring about this pain.

* * *

Optimus got to the black and white mech first, ready to pull him bodily from the console. "Prowl, the specifics are none of your concern."

"As the mech in charge of the security of all personnel, it is my concern," Prowl snapped back, using his security clearance to digitally summon Ratchet's last scan of Optimus onto the screen. He saw it for all of three seconds before Prime' slamming hand turned the image dark.

Prowl didn't get it. Not immediately, anyway. Optimus didn't know that though, feeling as though his feet had been welded to the floor. He forced his voice to be steady. "Clearly, nothing of tactical value was given up to Megatron," he intoned quietly. "Prowl, drop this. I didn't want you or anyone else to know about this because I want it dropped. We are at peace now – finally. All sins are to be forgiven, including what Megatron did."

One hand in an armour-crushing fist, Ironhide pressed the other to his helm in an failed attempt to restrain his tone. "Slag it all, Optimus, forgiveness? He baited you out just to frag you and rub your nose in it. He deserves to be shot into the sun alive."

Prowl blinked, looking to the dark mech speechlessly. Optimus realised with a twist in his spark that the tactician hadn't worked it out from the screen, but that he got it now. "Prowl," he began slowly, raising placating hands to the smaller mech.

A hard burst of Cybertronian curses made him cringe. Prowl didn't swear often nor allow his faceplates to twist into such an arrangement of rage, now turned on Ironhide. "You allowed this?"

Ironhide moved as if he'd just been shot at and was keen to respond hand-to-hand. "Don't you dare, Prowl. Don't you slagging dare think that I condone this. I'd rather we were at war until we wiped out our species."

"Which is precisely what I did this to prevent," Optimus bellowed with a hard gesture to his sparkmate, systems burning.

"You had no right to do such a thing, Prime." Prowl's optics were wide behind the visor as he looked up to the seething mech. "Ironhide's correct, and all of us would have supported him if they'd known the alternative. We'd have stopped you."

"Optimus," Ratchet warned softly, moving slowly into the tense triangle the three mechs had made. This was getting dangerously out of hand. "He's just concerned."

Optimus didn't register him, wholly focussed on the tactician. "'No right'? As Prime, as your –commander- I have every right to do anything I consider reasonable to end a conflict without –anyone- questioning my actions."

"Reasonable?" Prowl spat back, shoulder twisting up battle-ready as the damage results from the console flashed across his processor again. Spark exposed and touched by the enemy's hands. Parts wrenched asunder, sawn apart over and over, the protrusion driving deep into his body. Prime's body. The vessel of the Matrix. The walking symbol of Primus, defiled in the worst way. And Optimus defended his decision to allow it. "You see rape in exchange for peace as reasonable?"

Ratchet's medical sensors detected the subtle changes in the tall mech's body. "Prowl-"

"Don't you dare defend it!" Prowl growled, turning on him before looking back to Optimus, oblivious to the tremor. "You are no whore, Optimus. You should have led us to blow him apart for even suggesting as such, not let him frag you like a-"

An echo from metal striking metal hard enough to completely misshape it resounded through the room, leaving Ratchet staring dumbly at the unconscious mech on the floor. Ironhide regained his composure instantly, holding up a hand as Optimus moved past him for the door, shaking the ache in his hand off. "Optimus, please-"

"Don't," Optimus replied, pausing before the doorway and turning to regard the bulky mech, optics dark. "You've not left me to myself since the Nemesis, not trusted me to my own thoughts. I ask you to now." He looked to Ratchet, now kneeling over Prowl and grimacing at the mess the unrestrained punch had made of the mech's helm. "Ratchet, see to it this doesn't happen again. Too much detail exists in too many minds now without being recorded on your computers as well. Wipe the files, and see to it that Prowl is well. Pass on my apologies."

Ironhide took only a half step to follow but stilled himself, spark shaking with the effort. If Optimus wanted space, he should have it. "Where will you go?"

"I don't know," Optimus replied flatly, but sent a pulse of reassurance down the bond. "But I'll return by nightfall tomorrow."

The doors slammed shut and Prime's footfalls turned silent as he retreated away from the Medbay, and away from the Base. Stuck as to what to do, Ironhide settled to stand over Ratchet as he began unfastening the warped panels to beat them back into shape. "Prowl deserved that. Pit, I wanted to hit him."

Ratchet made a low sound, optics flickering up to the closed doors. "He made a good point, though, and it's gotten him thinking outside of trying to convince us he's unaffected."

Ironhide grunted, folding his arms. "It's got him hurting."

A grim smile. "A necessary part of healing. Do as he bids, 'Hide, as hard as that is. Right now he needs to figure a few things out for himself before we can do anything else to help."

* * *

The trees thinned out near the top of the rise, the bare earth now warm to his sensors beneath his feet as he stopped to look out across the landscape. If they did all decide to stay, and the American government permitted it, they would build a home here. It was beautiful, warm with energy and peaceful. Doubtless Wheeljack could stabilise the volcano to put off another eruption for centuries – they'd had that technology since the Cybertronians had set about stabilizing and converting Cybertron's geology to their needs.

Speculations about a home away from NEST were not what he'd come here for, though. As much as Prowl's tirade had rattled him, it had gotten him thinking. Made him finally accept that he was far from at peace with maelstrom he'd just tried to partition off in his processor. He'd truly believed that knowing their species was finally at peace would be rewarding enough to quiet his spark's own pain, but he'd been wrong.

The solution was not so simple, because the pain wasn't so simple. Mingled within each other were feelings he understood, could rationalise, and many that he could not. He sat, resting his elbows on his knees as his hands went to his optics.

There was guilt for baring his spark to anyone aside from Ironhide, and greater guilt that he could not bring himself to touch his sparkmate to comfort them both because his processor flickered back to Megatron's hands on his body.

Shame that he'd submitted intimately on his enemy's berth, and greater shame that he'd wanted to stop it despite knowing that it would have invalidated the peace agreement they'd just made.

Fear that he could never pay such a high price again if it were needed.

Sickly confusion that he'd been physically penetrated in a symbol of human sex. Delineated as female, submissive, and then sexually used.

Anger at himself for being perturbed that Megatron hadn't wanted a sparkmerge – that he had not sought his own overload. That the Decepticon had only wanted to puppet him towards his own climax and to watch him overload beneath him.

Disappointment that he couldn't see past an hour of discomfort to what had been achieved.

Self-loathing that he'd deeply resented the Autobots for 3.7 seconds for going through with it for them.

Something black and indefinable twisting around his spark that he had, in fact, been fucked like a fleshling whore.

A hard crunch close to him. As Optimus mentally pulled back, his proximity sensors that had been blaring warnings at him were suddenly heard. He looked up Starscream's shadow across the ground and his thick body rising up from its feet. The Seeker cocked his head, one hand bearing a pile of rocks at his side and the other extended to direct his null ray at the Autobot's face.

His mouth quirked. "If an Autobot gets offlined in the woods and no one's around to see it, is the treaty still void?"


	8. Chapter 8

Quits

_Chapter Eight_

Ironhide wordlessly took Prowl's legs as Ratchet wrapped his arms around the unconscious mech's chassis and lifted him up onto the closest berth, picking up the removed pieces of his helm from the floor afterwards. Turning the dented plates over in his hands, he lent back against the side of the berth as Ratchet began picking through and straightening the exposed parts. "Do you think I should have followed him?"

"I think you'd have made him angrier if you had," Ratchet murmured, using his forefinger to press a dark optic back from where it had been shoved an inch out of place my Prime's punch. "Optimus said he wanted some time and space to think, and Primus knows he hasn't had it yet. Better he takes himself for a long drive than goes around hitting his subordinates."

"Maybe, or maybe he needs to be getting some of this stuff out of his system," Ironhide grunted as he began forcing the dents out of the plates one at a time with his thumbs. "You said yourself he should be talking to someone."

A sigh and Ratchet looked up from Prowl's open helm. "I'm not a counsellor, 'Hide."

"I never said you were," came the snapped reply, though his tone evened out again with a hard cycle through his vents. "But you're the only one remotely qualified enough to help him."

Ratchet shook his head and looked back to his work with a grimace. It was a very simple repair compared to what he'd been doing over the last few days. "I can't help him if he doesn't want to be helped. He's refused to speak about it - whilst I repaired the damage and ever since. Just says he's fine and that it's unimportant."

Ironhide set down another smoothed plate and set about manipulating the last, quietly grateful for something to keep his hands occupied. "This is killing him, Ratch' and I don't know what to do."

The medic paused at that, looking up to the dark mech once more. "Has he talked to you about it at all?"

"Only that he's glad it was him and not one of us that Megatron wanted." Setting down the last plate on the berth, Ironhide rested his weight through his hands "He's right, though. At least it was in the name of something, and something good has come out of it."

Ratchet made a low sound, inserting a selection of fine manipulating rods to make final calibrations. "I'd say that's the worst part of it, actually. Now he feels he doesn't have the right to hurt so he's trying to suppress it without truly confronting his feelings."

Ironhide grunted a smirk. "See, that sounds exactly like something a counsellor would say."

A thin smile and Ratchet finished his repairs on the unconscious mech, taking the plates Ironhide handed to him and reaffixing them about Prowl's helm. When he was finished he moved to his workbench to rag off the film of lubricant and energon on his fingers. "I can't promise miracles, 'Hide."

"Not wanting miracles, Doc, just some healing," Ironhide replied as he followed. "Anything you can do to help."

Ratchet ran the cleansing wipe across his hands for far longer than he needed to, optics narrowed in thought. "I may need to speak to the humans about this, perhaps consult a military counsellor. Megatron mimicked human rape, not Cybertronian. There wasn't even a full spark merge." He frowned and rubbed his optics, cycling a hard sigh. "I've no idea where to begin given those circumstances."

Ironhide laid a hand on his shoulder and gave a little shake. "One thing at a time, Doc. Let's just get him admitting that he's not 'fine' first. Optimus didn't want anyone else knowing, and I can't say I blame him. See how far you can get before you go bringing someone new in."

Hand moving from his optics to knead at tight cables in the back of his neck. Ratchet regarded the older mech with a stern gaze. "Don't feel that you can't talk about it if you need to just to protect him, though. As much as you'd deny it, you're both involved in this as sparkmates and you both need to work through it."

His promise to Lennox flickered through the mech's processor, and he felt a fresh unease in his tanks that he'd said as much as he had behind Optimus's back. Taking his hand off the medic's shoulder, Ironhide averted his optics and took a step away before his elbow was caught. "Ratch-"

Ratchet's grip tightened. "Your health will support his, so do as you're told before I take you off duty too."

A deep rumble before Ironhide finally gave a short nod, shrugging Ratchet's hand off and folding his arms. "You're a real glitch sometimes, you know that?"

Ratchet's mouth flickered in a not-quite-kind smile. "I'm still all you've got, and I know what I'm talking about. None of this is going to get better overnight, but it can and will improve if you're both willing to work at it." The monitor beside Prowl's berth chirped to tell him that the mech was regaining consciousness. With a pointed look, he gave Ironhide an unsubtle nudge towards the door. "Straighten your own processor out so you can help me work on his, and that doesn't mean drinking High Grade until you go blind."

"Slag it, Ratch', ruin all my fun," came the grumbled retort as the doors hissed closed.

* * *

The energy from the magma within the volcano eased up into his body from where he sat, though the sensation had lost all its comfort now. Optimus arched a brow when a quick weapons scan noted that the barrel of the null ray was cold in bluff. Starscream smirked at his realisation. It seemed the Decepticon second-in-command was abiding by the ceasefire. Still, he got to his feet with his jaw set. "I'm not in the mood for your games, Starscream. What are you doing up here?"

Starscream lowered the weapon and gestured with his hand to make one of the rocks leap up, catching it again easily. "Investigating this volcano as an energon source. I'm here as a scientist, so don't start squawking to your Autobots. I've as much right to be here as you."

True enough, Optimus conceded with a sigh. It occurred that Starscream's newly peaceful company sounded like it might become more permanent. "You're one of the Decepticons Soundwave said was thinking of staying?"

Huge air vents rumbled quietly as Starscream moved past him, scuffing the ground with his feet and inspecting the rich ash as it was churned up. "Myself and the other Seekers. This planet has a good atmosphere for flying, and the open sky is a better alternative to living on the Nemesis whilst a new home for the Decepticons is sought."

It was disquieting to hear him admit to wishing to stay for such a simple thing, one without agenda. Optimus nodded to the stones cradled in his hand, trying to keep his scepticism out of his voice. "And you want to get back to your scientific roots now that you're a soldier without a war?"

Starscream gave a half shrug, moving behind the tall mech as he continued his slow circumference of the volcano. "Science is satisfying." A glance back to the lingering Prime, optics bright. "Not as satisfying as shooting Autobots and fleshies has been, but it's the only other thing I'm good at."

Curious, Optimus fell into slow step with the shorter mech, his surprise increasing when his presence was silently accepted. "So you're abandoning your pursuit to overthrow Megatron to take up geology?"

A scoff. "Megatron can choke on my exhaust. No war, no warring factions, no leaders making idiotic decisions to rile against." Starscream's right foot touched upon something that glinted with a dark, glassy shine. "I wanted command because I'd be better at it, not for the sake of it. But it doesn't matter now. Once the All Spark –and- Cybertron were destroyed, it didn't matter who was going to win or even if the annihilation of one side would still count as a victory."

It felt strange to be having a conversation with someone he'd long written off as a violent maniac, bent on seizing control from Megatron and overshadowing his master in the realm of unpredictability. Watching Starscream kneel to unearth and examine the rock, his mouth uncharacteristically shut and faceplates drawn together in concentration as he cut out the stone with a microlaser, Optimus wondered what the Seeker had been like before joining Megatron's ranks.

He shook his head a little. Less then a week of peace and things had already changed so much, though it was refreshing to have something other than his interface with Megatron occupying his attention. And Starscream didn't seem to mind. "I'd have expected you to want to destroy him anyway after all these years."

A wicked grin and Starscream looked up from where he knelt, one metallic brow arched. "Hoping I'll do it for you since your hands are tied?"

Unconsciously Optimus shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "No."

The minute fidget was glaringly obvious to the Seeker's intelligent gaze, particularly because he'd been looking for something like it since coming across the mech sitting alone with his head in his hands. Like Soundwave's hack, it confirmed his suspicions to fact and made the tall mech all the more interesting.

His smile broadening momentarily, Starscream stood and opened a hatch on his side, slipping the dark stone and the others he'd collected inside. "You hesitated, Prime. You always were a lousy liar." The compartment closed and left them nothing to look at but each other. Starscream rolled his optics and stepped past him close enough to nudge his shoulder into the mech's arm. "If you're not prepared to nullify the treaty by exacting revenge on him for what he did, then you're either going to have to get over yourself or extinguish your spark. Two out of three won't get you anywhere, so defrag your processor already because you're acting pathetic. Peace or not you're still a leader, and sparkache is a feeble excuse to offline yourself."

Optimus hesitated a moment before following, taken in by the other's candidness. There was no pity or concern in Starscream's tone, or indication that the topic made him uncomfortable. In fact, he seemed quite willing to voice his thoughts. He didn't appear remotely surprised. "Soundwave told you?"

Starscream glanced back to him with a more guarded expression, giving nothing away. He shook his head. "I know what kind of mech Megatron is, and when he evacuated the Nemesis before meeting you I suspected it. It's a very basic humiliation tactic for fracturing someone's spark, but everyone else was too dense to think of it."

"But not you," Optimus intoned softly, optics narrowing.

The red gaze flickered away for half a second, meeting his again momentarily before returning to the ground as they walked. "No, but then I'm not an idiot. Megatron wasn't going to agree to peace without getting something for himself out of it."

His bearings told him that there was something more to this than simple deduction on Starscream's part. Optimus cocked his head, brow furrowing. "You know that side of him."

A shrug. "I've served with him since from the start of the war." The tone was flat and dismissive. He started walking again.

Optimus nodded slowly. "From when you were just a scientist."

A thin smile as the Seeker's optics brightened in a closer scan of the ground. "One of the best."

Optimus allowed a beat to tease out whether that was arrogance or simply a statement of fact. He settled for the latter and commented, "Quite a transformation."

Sensors locating a good amygdaloidal sample, Starscream knelt to excavate it. "We do what we must to survive."

"And endure more." Optimus folded his arms, for the first time truly contemplating the kneeling mech whom had pointedly put his back to him. "What did he do to you to make what you are?"

The question seemed to come from nowhere, sprung from picking at the spaces between these new pieces of information that didn't fit against the profile he'd built of the Seeker in his mind. He was only encouraged when Starscream froze, hand still outstretched to the ground. "And why did he continue to keep you so close when you were so obviously a threat to him?"

Starscream considered abandoning the specimen and flying off but deemed it to be too much like retreating. Instead he activated the microlaser again and began to take a palm-size sample, optics narrowed. "Frag off, Prime."

To the Seeker's surprise, Optimus came about to crouch before him, bringing their optics almost level. Darkening blue met bright red for an instant. "He's done this before, hasn't he?"

Pulling the smoking specimen free, Starscream turned it over in his hands and replied to its pitted surface. "Don't go searching for cracks to my protoform. You won't find any."

A rattling sound as Optimus's vents cycled, hot air puffing loose particles of ash and soil outwards around them. "He made you hate."

Starscream looked up, optics tight. "I hated your side."

A sympathetic quirk of the mouth behind his face plate, and he gestured vaguely to the smaller mech. "You hated him and you took it out on us."

Direct hit. Starscream rose still examining the rock in his hands, finally slipping it into the compartment with the others and wiping stray particles off his fingers. "He kept me in line most of the time."

On some level Optimus knew that giving the haughty mech the higher ground was making it easier for him to go on, and he wanted him to. "He beat you."

Starscream rolled one shoulder, dismissive, but didn't move away. "Usually."

Optimus pressed, feeling a curious pressure building in his chassis for the Seeker to go on. Like he could have the answers he needed. "He assaulted you?"

A scoff and Starscream's hands slid onto his hips. "Such a fanciful and evasive term from someone who's twisted heads off with his bare hands." He paused to apparently consider the crouching mech, searching his features for a long moment before his expression slipped into seriousness upon finding whatever answer he was looking for. "Not for a long time. It doesn't work as well as it used to. I got over myself."

Now Optimus did stand, optics burning on the shorter mech an arm's reach away. "How?"

Starscream shrugged as if it were obvious. "Shouldered responsibility that it was my fault, and accepted that I'd brought it on myself." At the other's expression, he grunted through his vents and ran a hand across his jaw, thoughtful. Finally he started them walking again, continuing around the volcano's circumference towards where he'd landed a few hours ago.

"I goaded him," he continued flatly, as if reciting from a list. "Stabbed him in the back every chance I got, laughed in his face at his feeble attempts at punishment, sewed dissent so deep that he had to resort to threats to make some obey him, told him how I'd do everything better than he would at every opportunity. All along I'd been challenging him to do his worst to see what he'd sink to. To find out what I was really up against." Starscream met his optics without shame or anger. "No point in complaining once I did."

"That's it?" Optimus asked, his disbelief thick and tinged with horror that this was the solution. "You decided that it was your fault anyway, and somehow that helped?"

Starscream raised a hand to clarify. "Deciding not to care, that it didn't define me resolved it. Taking the time to confront it and think it through."

"Think it through?"

"Yes, you know that infrequently-used process for sorting and making sense of information?" Starscream drawled with a rolling hand gesture. "Burying data leads to corrosion. It was better to tackle it head-on and have done with it. Accept that I'd made mistakes that had led to it: pissed him off thousands of times knowing full well that a forced spark merge was likely a punishment he'd have me suffer sooner or later."

Optimus shook his head, bewildered by the admission and making no attempt to hide it. "So why did you keep doing it if you knew the outcome?"

"Because frag him, that's why," the Seeker spat, tone rising venomously as he spoke with accelerating rhythm. "I wanted to show him that nothing he could do to me mattered. That he'd never beat me down for good, that I was stronger than that. That short of killing me there was no way for him to completely control me, but I was too strong and good a soldier to just get rid of. It drove him mad."

Bringing a hand to trace his jaw in thought, Optimus moved past Starscream in the direction they had come. As difficult as it was to comprehend the fact that the cunning Seeker had been subjected to such treatment for centuries, and with a willingness to accept that punishment to keep behaving the way he did, it made sense. Megatron led with an unspoken 'or else' following his every command, inspiring a respect in his faction that was rooted in fear, but with Starscream it had always been personal. The Seeker had been singled out as deserving the most savage reprimands and somehow remained loyal, almost permitted to continue in his attempts to undermine Megatron at every turn because he knew he was the best soldier they had and that he was needed. And Starscream took pride in pointing that out to his master, alongside the fact that he'd never be broken. It was admirable in a deranged sort of way.

Though Starscream was undeniably skewed in the processor, he wasn't broken. He'd learned to live with every degradation and defilement that Megatron had bestowed on him. It wasn't a recovery, but it was a way of living with things without trembling.

There wasn't much of a comparison between their circumstances that he could draw from, though. Nothing Starscream had done by way of a coping mechanism to move on that he could use for the same. Just 'thought it through,' which seemed straightforward enough if it weren't for the fact that he didn't understand how the whole thing had come about in the first place.

Optimus spoke to the air, narrowed optics lifting to fix upon the horizon. "Why did he want that from me? Why even offer to end the war?"

A pause before crunching footsteps brought Starscream to stand beside him, looking out over the land as well. "He likely thought that you'd never take him up on it, that you'd see through it for the opportunity to clog your processor that it was. Once you agreed, he was bound to keep up his end of the bargain." A snort of a laugh. "Pit of a backfire."

"It was a mistake," Optimus replied softly, frowning as the words hit his own audios. "I made a mistake."

Starscream turned to face him in profile, folding his arms with an incredulous and deeply irritating smirk spreading across his features. "The noble, selfless, magnanimous Prime regrets getting onto his enemy's berth even though it ended the Great War?"

"Yes." As awful as he wanted it to be, the admission was also a great relief.

Starscream shook his head. "You're an idiot, Prime."

A short humourless laugh shunted from his vents. "On occasion."

"You Autobots are so precious about interfacing," Starscream went on, turning to regard the horizon again now that the sun was low enough for the stars to stand out between the clouds. "Probably none of you sparkmerge until you think you've found The One... Just you, who'll do it if the price is right."

"There was no sparkmerge," Optimus intoned flatly, failing to disguise his ongoing surprise over that detail.

Starscream appeared equally surprise to hear it, giving the taller mech a sidelong look. "Interesting. Hn. He really messed with your processor."

"That he did," Optimus replied under his vents.

A beat as both mechs simply stood, feeling the peaceful quiet draw out between them. It was going to be a long time before an Autobot and a Decepticon could be in such amicable proximity without it feeling odd. Finally Starscream took a few steps forwards and flexed his wings, preparing to transform. "Figure it out, Prime, because this is going to get very tedious very quickly."

"Starscream," Optimus said over the sound of transformation gears beginning to shunt. "If you do decide to remain on this planet, I'd be interested in your findings from today."

The jet finished transforming as if he hadn't heard, but then Starscream's voice slid out from the cockpit. "I'll think about it."

Optimus nodded. "And thank you for your counsel."

If Starscream was surprised his alt form didn't show it, though his voice was quiet and thick with discomfort. "Don't mention it."

The Seeker made a short run across the ground before taking off into the thin air, pinwheeling upwards through the clouds and completely disappearing long before the sound of his engines did. Optimus waited until the air was silent again, flexing his servos before deciding to think on all this during the drive back to the Base.


	9. Chapter 9

Quits

_Chapter Nine_

Optimus returned to the Base laden with everything Starscream had said and trying to use the revelation of his error in giving himself to Megatron to work out what to do next. There was a great deal he was still uneasy about, but it was a step in the right direction.

Finally coming into the yard in the small hours of the morning, he noted Ironhide's absence with a sigh as he remembered that the guardian mechs were watching over their human charges for the next few days in case of retaliation from a rogue Decepticon. Transforming into his bipedal form, he rubbed his optics wearily and headed towards the end of the Base that housed the Medbay. He'd hit Prowl a lot harder than he'd intended to, and wanted to apologise for it.

Ironically, before his unexpected talk with Starscream he'd felt little regret about knocking the tactician out, but now he could see that Prowl had been right. Overly direct about it, but apt in his assertions. Not unlike Starscream, in fact. The thought caused him to shake his head, bemused all over again by the Seeker's timely intervention.

Just as he had gone looking for Prowl, Prowl had come seeking him out once the sentries had reported his return. The slim mech met him at the crossway between the Medbay and the corridor leading away to his office, offering a thin smile by way of a greeting.

"Prime."

"Prowl," Optimus began, faltering a little on the words as he noticed the fresh welds along the other's helm. "I must apologise for what happened. I should never have struck you like that."

An arched brow. "At least you chose the best location to do so. Ratchet had me back out within an hour." He glanced down for a moment, servos whining quietly. "Optimus, I'm sorry for reacting the way I did, but I can't deny that I still think that what you did was a mistake. What you-"

"You're right."

Prowl blinked at the interruption in his pre-planned speech. "Sir?"

Optimus quirked a smile. "You're right about it having been a mistake. I regret it, and I'm not… quite myself yet, but like all mistakes I will learn from it. I must ask for your patience in that, though."

"Of course," Prowl replied quietly, optics brightening in thought. He'd been prepared for Optimus to still be defensive and tense about the whole thing upon his return, though hopefully a little less angry. This complete turnabout surprised him, and he frowned. "May I ask what you've been doing, Sir?"

A breath of a laugh and Optimus clapped a hand to the smaller mech's shoulder. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, old friend. Suffice to say it has given me much to think about." His hand dropped back to his side in a gesture of formality. "What have the communications from the Earth governments been like in my absence regarding the peace?"

"General astonishment on the side of great suspicion," Prowl replied archly. "I explained that you'd been in discussion with a Decepticon representative who didn't have it in his circuits to lie, and explained that they would be departing the planet shortly. They want to speak with you, though, as much as for confirmation as to reassess the conditions of our sanctuary if we choose to stay."

"At least for a time," Optimus murmured, touching a hand across his faceplate in thought. "I'll put it to the Autobots, but I'm certain that they will wish to remain for as long as we're welcome. We've formed good allies and friends here, and with no homeworld to return to, a reprieve before we begin to seek a new one may be appreciated."

Prowl shifted with a low sound, thoughtful. "It depends on what the humans want in exchange for us living here for a little longer. More than once their officials have pointed out that they had only granted sanctuary so that we may continue to protect them from the Decepticons."

"Likely it will be knowledge they want. They are a species hungry for understanding, and we are the first alien species they have encountered." Optimus considered it a moment before looking to his second in command again. "We will not share our technology with them to enhance their wars, but we could share information about ourselves."

A soft click of approval and Prowl nodded. "Something to propose to them."

"I'll do so today after some recharge." The tall mech raised a hand, cutting off any protests relating to his still being medically signed off duty. "I mean no offense, Prowl, just that many of the spokesmen have become used to me as a mediator."

Prowl nodded with shuttered optics, having already deduced as much. "None taken. It makes sense for you to talk to them. I take it you're to be left alone in your office today?"

Optimus glanced pointedly in the direction of the Medbay. "If I can manage it without Ratchet or Ironhide intervening."

"I'll see about finding something to keep them occupied."

"Thank you, Prowl."

"Of course," the tactician murmured, beginning to move past Optimus but pausing. "Oh, Sunstreaker rolled in an hour ago making all Bots accounted for."

Optimus tipped his head. "And the NEST officers?"

"Also returned."

The big mech smiled a little. "Then I see no reason why the celebrations of peace should wait until next week, other than to allow Wheeljack more time to create something spectacularly explosive. Bring it forward to tonight." A sigh and he ran a hand across the back of his neck, adding, "I for one could use some High Grade after the last week."

Prowl barked a laugh, relieved at hearing such a light admission from the mech. It was a significant indicator that things were improving. "I'll put out a memo."

* * *

It was three am and Ironhide stood motionless over Sara Lennox's vegetable patch, watching for rabbits and other vermin as a means of passing the time. His sensors detected nothing remotely hostile for two miles around the house, and a part of him was crestfallen at the fact. He really, really wanted to shoot something at the moment. Rabbits would do given the lack of anything else, but all the nearby wildlife seemed to have sensed his mood – or humming cannons – and was keeping away.

"Can't sleep, Ironhide?"

He stiffened a little at the soldier's voice from behind him, powering down his weapons and turning to look down at Lennox. "I don't recharge when I am protecting your domicile."

"I bet you could," Lennox supplied with a half smile, folding his arms across the thin t-shirt he'd been sleeping in that didn't quite keep out the cold now. "Just lightly, I mean. I know your sensors can pick up the mailman a mile out strong enough to wake you up."

A low sound of grudging agreement and a pause before Ironhide admitted, "Perhaps, but I don't think I could recharge."

Lennox gave a sympathetic grimace. "Worrying about Prime again?" he asked softly, trying to make it sound like a simple and emotionally uncluttered question.

Ironhide shifted a little, clearly debating his response. "There was a… He left alone, though assured me that he would be back by tonight at the latest."

The soldier nodded, assuming some kind of argument but knowing better than to pry into a domestic, particularly when he didn't know the facts. In fact, he knew not to get involved in a domestic argument any time. "Sounds like he just needed some space," he settled to observe in the end. "Did you guys have a fight?"

"No, not really," Ironhide replied with narrowed optics, turning the 'incident' in the Medbay over in his processor again. "He did hit Prowl though."

A beat as Lennox's jaw fell lax. "He hit Prowl?"

Ironhide grinned with something like pride. "Knocked him out cold. Slagger deserved it for what he was saying."

"What did he say?"

The thick hydraulics within the mech's legs whined as he shifted his weight, making to turn his body from the human in an equally evasive and dismissive motion. "Captain Lennox –

"Will," Lennox corrected automatically, unperturbed by Ironhide's tone.

Another grumble was cut off by a chirp from the mech's comm. He touched a hand to his finial to indicate to Lennox that he was talking. After a few seconds he blinked and looked back to the human. "Prowl has informed me that Optimus has requested that the celebrations planned for next week be brought forward to tonight. Is it still convenient for you to attend?"

"Of course, yeah. Family too?"

"They are welcome," Ironhide began slowly, arching a brow, "but there will likely be a lot of High Grade being consumed."

Lennox nodded with pursed lips. "And drunk mechs don't really go well with toddlers."

A light smile. "Not particularly."

"Alright. Me, Epps and the boys then," Lennox concluded with a grin.

"Very agreeable," the mech grunted, looking to examine his right cannon as it rotated lazily, revolving in and out.

Lennox hesitated a moment before looking up the huge figure again. "Did Prowl say how Optimus was?"

"No," Ironhide replied, his gaze remaining on the pristine cannon but his focus quite obviously elsewhere. "But he said that he was to be left undisturbed today to speak to your governments."

A thoughtful sound and Lennox ran a hand through his hair, cupping the back of his head with a frown. "Sounds like he still wants some space."

"Perhaps," Ironhide rumbled, clearly uneasy with the notion.

Lennox took a few steps forwards to pat at the side plating on one large foot, feeling a stale heat coming off the living parts inside. Usually Ironhide's systems hovered just above room temperature, and he wondered if the warmth was a symptom of his agitation. "Give a bit of time, 'Hide. It'll work out."

Bright optics narrowed abruptly with great scepticism, and Ironhide shifted to kneel before the human. "How can you state such a thing when you don't know what's happened?"

The soldier allowed for the corner of his mouth to rise, sliding his hands to his hips. "Yeah, it'd be a lot easier if you just told me, right?"

Ironhide bowed his head with a growl, pinching his optics. "True."

"Maybe over a beer?" he broached lightly, "Well, a High Grade for you."

"Perhaps," came the murmured reply, followed by a sigh of resignation as he recalled Ratchet's unsubtle advice. "Thank you Will. I hadn't forgotten your offer."

"Didn't think you had, 'Hide," Lennox replied with a thin smile. "Just wanted to remind you of it."

Ironhide shifted a little on his haunches, optics flickering down before he nodded to the darkened window of the soldier's bedroom. "I doubt that there will be much opportunity for recharge tomorrow night," he intoned, knowing already that Lennox wasn't a human who liked being told to go to sleep even though his scans detected that it was needed.

Lennox took the hint – or rather his yawn did. "Yeah, I'm gonna try and catch a few more hours of shut eye. You mind doing the school run with Annabel?"

The old mech smiled a little, even though the task involved having a car seat put into him. The human child had grown on him, though he'd never openly say as much. "Of course not."

"Thanks. G'night, 'Hide." A few steps towards the house Lennox paused, running a hand through his hair as he looked back to Ironhide with a frown. "Uh... Try not to blow craters in my yard, okay?"

An irritated rumble as Ironhide straightened and resumed his watch over the vegetable patch. "It was only -one- crater," he murmured beneath his vents as he heard the door click shut.

* * *

After parting ways with Optimus in the corridor Prowl had continued on to the Medbay, predicting the medic to still be up. As he had done for every doorway since leaving a few hours ago, he clipped the frame with his right shoulder as he stepped inside.

"That optic needs another calibration," Ratchet observed as he got up from his workbench at the sound, patting the berth Prowl had been on after being knocked out by their superior.

They fell into their accustomed silence whilst Prowl waited patiently for the medic to finish poking about and making adjustments in his helm. When the most delicate work was done and Ratchet had begun replacing the plates he'd removed to gain access, he brought up Prime's return to the Base and the curious exchange in the corridor.

Ratchet stepped about the berth as Prowl sat up, watching the mech swing his legs over the edge to face him. "He's moved the celebrations to tonight?"

"Yes. Said he could use the High Grade," Prowl replied in a matching tone, touching briefly at the fresh seals. As always, Ratchet had done fine work. "He seemed a lot better, actually."

"Better how?" Ratchet asked with no little dubiousness, raising his hand to the mech's optics with a scrutinizing gaze. "Follow my finger."

Prowl tracked the digit left and right, noting the medic's soft clicks of satisfaction. "He said that I was right – that it had been a mistake."

Ratchet froze with a blink at that, bringing his hand to rub at his jaw with a frown. "That's… significant."

"I know," Prowl murmured, cocking his head at the other's response. When the medic moved back towards the workbench he slid off the berth to follow. "Ratchet, talk to me. As acting commander of the Autobots and his friend I need to know what to expect from him."

Picking up a data pad containing his notes, Ratchet rested his weight back against the workbench and offered a half shrug. "There's not a lot I can offer aside from the basics and some speculation."

Prowl stood a few feet away and folded his arms, optics bright and inquiring. "Please do."

Ratchet's mouth quirked and his face tightened in thought for a moment. Finally he cast his gaze to the pad in his hand, using a stylus projection from his index finger to scroll through the notes in quiet clicks. Though not lecturing, his tone was one of detached professionalism. "This was an atypical rape, though it was still sexual in nature and sought to damage Optimus's dignity and self-esteem. Typically there would still be the two recovery phases, the first being the acute phase as physical wounds are healed and coping mechanisms are put into action. The second is the reorganization phase, which I believe he's entering now as he attempts to get on with his life."

Shifting his weight a little on his feet, Prowl found his processor combing back over Prime's behaviour over the last few days and the information he'd gleaned from the physical scan. A slight nod. "Seems straightforward enough."

By contrast Ratchet shook his head, meeting the other's gaze again. "It's the penetration element that's making things so difficult. That violent breaching of the boundary between self and the outside world." Without realising he began to pace in slow, measure steps, gesturing with the pad. "A forced spark merge is an invasion of the soul, but there was none. What there was, was an invasion of his body in as dominating a way as possible, and an act unheard of in our species."

He looked to Prowl with that same sense of helplessness that had been cropping up every time he looked at Prime's notes. "I'm trained to counsel shame and guilt following rape, and I can work with both him and Ironhide to rebuild a sense of control and trust. This foreign element though has me out of my depth. I can't understand it."

Prowl ran his fist along his jaw, frowning as he too saw the problem. "It sounds like you need to speak to a human about it," he suggested lightly, a brow raising.

Ratchet made a low sound and resumed pacing. "Speaking to a human wouldn't necessarily provide me with the answers I need to help him, and Ironhide requested that I try to work without bringing in anyone else. For the time being, at least, I'd like to try." He stopped level with the end of the workbench, looking to Prowl again. "If he's already come to see that this was an attack he shouldn't have felt a need to submit to, and more significantly that he's allowed to feel affected by it, then we may be able to help work him through this on our own. It's a significant step in the right direction."

"So, he's told me that he's not 'fine', and I've told you," Prowl marked off on his hand, quirking a sceptical brow. "Do you think he'll be able to tell Ironhide on his own?"

"I think a few cubes of High Grade could help things along, and spending time together outside of the Medbay and, Primus forbid – relaxing a little would do them both a lot of good." He set the pad down, crossing his arms with a thin smile. "It seems that this party could bring about a lot of good."

"Or a lot of bad," Prowl replied archly, though his features were tinged with mirth. "Wheeljack's custom fireworks, the Twins and more High Grade than has been broken out in centuries."

Ratchet snorted a laugh. "I'll be sure to prep my welding arc."


	10. Chapter 10

Quits

_Chapter Ten_

Five o'clock saw Ironhide returning from the firing range after spending a day wearing out the Twins and any other bot Prowl had quietly suggested would benefit from being a little tired before they started on the High Grade that evening. Beneficial for the Base, that was. Ironhide had taken on the task gladly, though he wasn't looking forward to the extensive repairs that every single training droid now required.

The NEST soldiers had started a large barbeque beside a bonfire around the back of the Base, and the air was thick with the smell of charcoal and searing meat. As Prowl and Sideswipe began setting up the newly made High Grade kegs, Ironhide made his way past several excitable bots towards the main hanger where Prime's office could be found. With the High Grade outside and the celebrations officially begun, the corridor was predictably deserted. Outside the door, though, the dark mech found himself hesitating to go inside or even knock.

He'd spent the day since transporting Lennox's family and returning with the soldier to the Base 'blowing seven shades of shit' out of anything remotely like a target, as Epps had so eloquently put it, and it had felt long-overdue. He was a mech built for conflict and understood the battlefield and weaponry better than anything else. Conflict was his optimal environment, and he knew what he was doing there.

With Optimus lately, he'd had no idea of what he was doing. And it chilled his spark.

The situation was nightmarish to contemplate let alone try to find a way out of. When his sparkmate was with Megatron, and he'd pressed the bond to see how things were going, the flood of emotion back had floored him.

_No word from Prime yet, and Prowl had insisted that all they could do was wait. Like he could just slagging –wait- when his sparkmate had gone, on his own, to meet the head of the enemy faction at an unstated location. Leaving the briefing room he and Prowl had been hovering in since Optimus had left, Ironhide stalked back to his shared quarters muttering in Cybertronian beneath his vents. Prowl's unending patience had been sending his circuits into a fritz, and there was no reason he couldn't wait for contact in his quarters instead of staring at that irritatingly calm visage._

_And, he thought to himself as he let himself in and took up a cube of energon, Prowl had only said they couldn't use the comm.s to speak to Prime. Megatron wouldn't know if they spoke over the bond._

_Taking a swig of energon, Ironhide slid up to sit on the edge of the berth and set about oiling the microparts in his canons to keep his hands busy. :Optimus? What's going on? What did Megahead want?:_

_The burst of panic that surged back froze his hands. Panic at being caught doing something, he realised, and quickly diagnosed the other sensations flowing back like liquid to be shame and… arousal? _

_:Please, 'Hide, I don't want you to see this.:_

_The plea stilled his spark. Dropping to his feet, he took half a step with balled fists before realising that he didn't have anywhere to go. :See what? What the slag is going on?:_

_Nothing for a few seconds, then a curdling sense of nausea swelled up beneath everything else along the bond. A fresh spike of fear and… pressure. As if Optimus were being trapped somehow. Ironhide began to pace in agitated steps, head ducked and optics dark. Before he could repeat the question, the mech's 'voice' came again, forcibly level._

_:We're negotiating a truce. Everything will be fine.:_

_There was static as Optimus tried to close the bond on his end and Ironhide forced it back open with a grunt of effort, finding it too easy to overcome the mental defence. It amplified his own fear and frustration._

_:Ironhide, please…:_

_Optimus had never spoken in such a tone, and it stilled Ironhide's tight pacing to hear it now. The anxiety he could sense from the other mech surged, twisting his own tanks, and there was an alien note of helplessness and uncertainty honing the edge of the feeling. Seconds passed and it didn't abate, beginning to prickle with more cold, unwelcomed spikes of arousal._

_A whimper slid against his mind._

_One hand on the berth, Ironhide found himself sinking to his knees as the wave of shame, disgust and fear swelled about his mind. He covered his optics, pressing until it hurt. :Primus, tell me he's not.:_

_:It's all he wants for peace: Optimus snapped back in a more recognizable tone, sounding as if he were arguing with himself as much as to his sparkmate. :He wants to feel that he's defeated me. A few joors of personal discomfort is a small price to pay.:_

_Ironhide felt his vents shunt violently and his fans kick in as his systems began to heat. He shook his head, bewildered by the words and overwhelmed by the feelings. :Personal discomfort? Frag Optimus, what you're talking about -:_

_Optimus's cry cut him off and triggered his tanks to purge. Against the maelstrom of emotions coming from the bond, his processor roared through every imaginable thing that could be happening to the mech at this instant. Gripping the berth, he forced himself to his feet, stumbling when a clear note of echoed pain lurched through the bond, backed by dread and fear._

_:'Hide, help me.:_

_Ironhide was already making for the door, his tone thick and growled back down the bond in reply. :Where are you?: _

_:The Nemesis, but I don't-: _

_Every awful feeling filling the bond suddenly increased tenfold, and Ironhide clutched at his helm feeling as if he were drowning in it. It didn't stop, didn't lessen, twisting a burning path through his spark that brought him back down to his knees by the door. He'd felt spikes of fear from Optimus in battle before through the bond, when someone was about to get seriously hurt or it looked like a whole mission was about to go to slag. He'd felt anxiety when a big decision had to be made, one that could potentially cost a bot their life. But he'd never felt such abject terror from his sparkmate before. It was naked and encompassed his every sense, spanning beyond his instinct to simply dive in weapons blazing. It scared him to his core._

_And that manipulated arousal, coated in layer upon layer of seething shame and loathing. _

_The bond began to fill with static as Optimus's mind began to recoil back in on itself, and Ironhide grasped it with his own. :Stay with me, Optimus.: His voice had taken on a pleading quality, desperate with a need to protect and helpless with the knowledge that he couldn't. He could help him survive this, though, and get him back. :Just focus on me.:_

_:Stop, please.: They cry made his spark lurch as he imagined it being said to Megatron. There was a sudden rush of humiliation alongside the shame. :It's bad enough without you here.:_

_Ironhide brought his hands from his head and balled them into fists, pressing them into the floor. The solid ground anchored him, let his shaking vents suck in air for his burning systems. :All you need to do is survive this.: He fell into the level, firm tone that he used to teach on the firing range, clinging to it with closed optics. :Survive it, that's all. Just let him do what he wants to your body. Keep your mind with me. Focus on me.:_

_For long minutes there was silence across the bond, though the emotions were deafening in their own right. Escalating to impossible heights. The flash of rage caught him by surprise, but the white anger was quickly overwhelmed by despair. He pressed in fresh panic, desperate to know what had happened._

_Optimus mentally choked out the words. :I have to overload for him to stop.:_

_Mouth twisting, Ironhide shuttered his optics hard and pressed his trembling fists into the floor. He wanted nothing more right then than to go straight to the Nemesis and turn it into a crater. To tear his sparkmate from Megatron's hands and shred the mech apart one piece at a time. But that wasn't what Optimus needed right now. That wasn't how he could help. He needed for this torment to stop, and though it seemed an impossible condition to meet they would try._

_Resolved, the scarred mech shifted to sit against the wall, resting his elbows on his knees and pressing his hands to his helm. :Pretend you're with me,:_

_Shock, fear, pain and a warmth that signalled that his spark chamber had been opened. :'Hide, I can't.:_

_Ironhide shook his head, jaw tight as he forced out the reassurance that Optimus needed. :Yes you can. Focus on me.:_

_Numbness now, emotionally overloaded so that the bond registered as white noise. It wouldn't end until Megatron was satisfied, and as loathe as he was to give it he wanted to end this nightmare as soon as possible. Head bowed into his chest, he searched for what he could possible say that would help. It struck him suddenly._

_:Remember that night we bonded in the rain?:_

_:Yes.: The word came back a hiss._

_Ironhide smiled grimly, forcing his processor to focus on the warm memory. He tried to laugh, to detract from what was really happening. :You shook like a petrorabbit, even when you were against me.:_

_The fog of distress faltered momentarily. :I remember.: The relief was short lived as tainted pleasure began to move to the fore of the bond, a shameful arousal charge beginning to build from a spark chamber being caressed and stimulated. :Oh Primus, 'Hide, he's-:_

_:I know, I know.: Ironhide interrupted in a rumbled, soothing tone, as much for himself as Optimus. He didn't want to imagine it. Couldn't. Tipping his head back, he pressed his helm hard into the wall and forced himself to concentrate. :Don't think about that. Think about me. Remember how that was the first time you let me be on top? Let me hold you for once.: Nothing in the bond changed and he hissed a sigh before continuing. :And you just lay there looking at me, watched me run my hands on your chassis.:_

_A silence and then, sounding choked, Optimus replied, :You were smiling.:_

_Some of the tension in the bond easing away, Ironhide gave a thin smile of relief. : I'd never been happier than I was then, looking down at ya. Knowing we were about to tie our sparks together like that."_

_The cracks of pleasure began to overcome the rest of the emotional storm, though shame remained a close second. :'Hide… Can you feel what's happening?:_

_A low sound passed through his vents before he could catch himself, leaving him with no choice but to admit the truth. :I can feel your fear. Your arousal.:_

_A mental groan and the shame amplified, suppressing the arousal. :Primus…:_

_:No, that's good,: Ironhide assured quickly, forcing a reassuring calm that he didn't feel. He could tell that it was nearly over now. :It's what he wants. It'll be over quicker if you just let it happen. Focus. Think about us bonding.:_

_It seemed to help distract Optimus from what was happening, the fear abating enough to allow the overload charge to build again. :It was raining so hard I couldn't always make you out against the sky.:_

_Ironhide immersed himself in the memory, devoting himself to the cherished details with a low purr. :The water gathered in your neck when you tipped your head back. Let me kiss you. Bite you. Please you.:_

_Something close to calm, and Optimus replied in a tone he associated with their berth. :You always please me.:_

_:You'd never let yourself go like that before.' Ironhide almost added that until then Optimus had never put himself at his mercy, but the words died in his processor. Optimus had turned out to be a submissive partner, passionate but finding great freedom in the one place where he didn't have to lead, and it was not something he needed reminding of now. :I remember your spark was like a nova, or a dying star, reaching out for mine.:_

_The wave of pleasure built slowly, stumbling over pricks of fear as Megatron elicited new sensations through his body. :I needed you. I need you." A jolt of heat and he guessed it was from a neural line in the mech's neck. 'Hide…:_

_Ironhide spoke determined to sound as if he wasn't listening to a rape, fists trembling off his knees. :The first thing you said across our bond was that you loved me. I think about it every time I see you.:_

_Another soft sound like a whimper. :Will you love me after this?:_

_:Of course I will,: Ironhide rumbled back, feeling his spark contract viciously. :This is the bravest, most selfless and stupidest thing you've ever done.:_

_The bond was swollen with warmth and pleasure, just hovering on the border of bitterness. :'Hide...:_

_Ironhide replied softly to that quietly panicked plea, head bowed in concentration and willpower to see this through. :You're close. Let it happen. Imagine it's my hands on your plates, my spark against your spark, my mouth on your mouth. Let go.:_

_Seconds later the electrical charge thrummed against him, a rough, hard rush of power that burned of bitter surrender. He waited, frozen, for it to pass before concentrating on sending love and reassurance along the bond. :That's it. It's over. You can come back to me.:_

_There was a cold nothingness for almost ten minutes though the bond remained open. Finally the awful limbo ended with a fresh wash of pain and shame. He sent warmth back, his words soft. :Come back to me, love.:_

_Nothing at first, and then, :Meet me halfway. I'm coming.:_

Ironhide shook his head again, gaze still fixed on some undetermined point near the base of the door. He'd been at a loss to see how he could help Optimus overcome the attack before he'd accidentally intercepted the whole experience through Soundwave's hack. Now he had every touch to his sparkmate's body, every movement of Megatron against him burned into his processor, and the only solution he could come up with was to murder the Decepticon. But that would undermine everything that Optimus had fought for, and had continued to defend even when he'd been told that everyone would happily shove the peace agreement if they knew the circumstances. He couldn't imagine any of the Autobots not wishing to avenge their Prime for this dishonour.

But the short of it was that he had to find another way around this. From what Ratchet had said, that way was talking. A great deal, in an openly emotional way. The weapons specialist shifted again at the thought, very doubtful that he had the capacity for such conversations. He genuinely feared he'd just make things worse. He'd already spooked Optimus once by getting too close, though he'd meant nothing by it at the time other than to reassure. It was such a fragile thing between them now, and he was wary to do anything that might make things harder.

His servos all jerked together in surprise when the door suddenly opened, revealing Optimus's impressive form on the other side. The tall mech seemed weary but offered a smile, stepping out of the doorway and brushing a hand along Ironhide's arm. "Were you looking for me?"

Ironhide cleared his processor and shifted a little, warmed by the brief touch. "Yeah. The party's just kicking off outside. I figured you might need someone to pry you from your desk."

"Thank you, but I've no qualms with leaving it for the day," Optimus replied with a soft whine from his hydraulics as he moved, lines stiff from sitting for most of the day. Resealing the door, he started for the yard and smiled as Ironhide fell into step beside him. "I've been speaking to officials all day, and it became very repetitive very quickly. What about you?"

A broad shoulder rolled in a shrug, and Ironhide grumbled his response with his optics downcast. "I've been on the firing range with the mechlings having a productive day of weapons training."

Though Optimus had noticed the subtle withdrawal he didn't mention it, merely replying softly, "I'm glad to hear it."

Ironhide gave a curt nod, finally looking up to the taller mech with a thin smile. Bright blue optics stared back at him quizzically, and he immediately gestured towards the doorway out to the yard. "Come on – let's see just how big Wheeljack's fireworks are."

* * *

The fireworks had scared away all wildlife for several miles around the Base, and nearly some of the humans as well. They had been very impressive, though. Now it was close to midnight and the handful of soldiers still cursed with a low alcohol tolerance were passed out against resting mechs or mingling near the bonfire. Sam and Mikaela were toasting marshmallows on the side of laughing at Bumblebee's attempts at juggling the beer kegs. With his equilibrium sensors as compromised as most of the other mech's, he was being given a wide berth. The Twins were animatedly retelling old war stories, gesturing with their cubes of High Grade and making up names for when their muzzy processors drew a blank. Sideswipe had taken an interest in burning animal flesh on the bonfire, listening to Epps recount all the unusual species he'd ever eaten whilst the mech cooked the whole cow he had mysteriously 'found' an hour earlier.

Ironhide and Prowl sat with their backs against a wall, legs outstretched and a fair collection of cubes littering the ground around them. Only three of them were the tactician's, whom had taken it upon himself to be the designated sober bot even though the peace deal had been confirmed as a certainty. Lennox had been drawn into a lengthy argument between Ratchet and Wheeljack about what explosives you couldn't put into a firework, no matter how aesthetically pleasing it may be. Neither had been successful in getting away despite motioning for Jolt to come over to 'rescue' them. The transformed Chevrolet had found it to be far more entertaining to watch them from a distance.

Suddenly realising the time and remembering that the Witwickys had insisted that Sam call in during the 'army booze-fest', Mikaela left Sam starting to teach a very wired yellow mech how to do the chicken dance to venture away into the trees. Though quiet enough to make the phone call, the sound of the soldiers and mechs was still loud enough to make out distinct voices. A crash followed by loud expletives led her to believe that Bumblebee had just fallen onto Ratchet, and she began to make her way back to the group with a grin splitting her features.

The sharp sound of cracking wood drew her attention to Optimus's silhouette through the trees to her right, his almost silent approach belaying his substantial form. The slant of the two blue lights suggested that his head was tipped. She slipped her phone back into her pocket and smiled up at the reserved mech as he moved closer. "Hey Optimus. Enjoying the party?"

"It is very… festive," he replied after a pause, an amused lilt underlining his preoccupied tone. The reverb of his voice was slightly more noticeable, but otherwise there was nothing to suggest that he'd taken in a fair amount of High Grade. Dropping to one knee, Optimus's voice turned softer and more serious. "I was wondering if I could impose on your time to speak with you privately."

Mikaela blinked at the request, momentarily stunned before nodding. "Sure, yeah. We can just, uh." She looked about the vicinity for something robot-friendly to sit on, like a big log, but abandoned the search when Optimus simply moved to sit alongside her. He'd never approached her like this before, and it left her flustered, dusting at her jeans as she sat next to him with her back against a thick tree. "So, uh, what's on your mind?"

Optimus shifted fractionally, adjusting his legs against the ground. It seemed to be a conscious decision to meet her gaze. "It seems that part of the condition for us remaining on this planet is to allow your scientists to learn more about us, particularly our biology," he began hesitantly, running a finger across the corner of his jaw with narrowed optics. "It is problematic because our species are so alien to one another, making analogies difficult to draw. To better answer their questions, I have been researching your own biology more thoroughly in search of comparability. You're so different to us, Mikaela, and I wondered," he paused, tone hesitant, "if you would be willing to answer a personal question."

Her brows raised and she ran a hand back through her hair, not evening hazarding a guess as to what the Autobot leader could possibly want to ask her in terms of a personal question. Surely he could have gotten any answers he wanted from Ratchet, who seemed to know the ins and outs of their bodies better than they did at times. Finally she cleared her throat and looked up to him, granting her full attention. "That'd be fine, Optimus. Anything I can do to help human/Autobot relations, you know? What's your question?"

His optics drifted down again, narrowing slightly. There was a quiet metallic noise as he rubbed his thumb across the armoured pads of two fingers in slow circles. It was a nervous gesture, she noted with dull surprise, looking up again when he finally, softly, asked, "How can you permit another to penetrate your body?"

Mikaela's jaw slackened though her mouth remained closed – an unconscious skill that she'd mastered over the last few years. There had been plenty to gawk at where the Autobots and NEST in general were concerned, and it was a source of pride for anyone who could seem unaffected by new instances of strangeness or incredibleness. Though, there were limits to what anyone could expect in the realm of the unexpected. "That's, not quite what I was expecting," she replied weakly with a half smile, watching his shielded face in profile.

With an agitated rumble through his vents, Optimus shook his head and made as if to get up. "Forgive me, that was deeply inappropriate and a breach of cultural etiquette. I'll leave with my sincere apologies."

"No! No, wait – I just said it was unexpected, not that I wouldn't answer," she shouted over the sounds of his systems flexing to get him upright. Optimus paused and looked down to her, sceptical, only sitting again when she patted the ground. Once he'd settled to watch her patiently, her brow furrowed and she rubbed her neck in thought. "First, why do you want to know?"

His vents cycled the equivalent of a sigh that sent a wave of hot air across her. Silence stretched out, filled in with excitable sounds from the Base and blasts of music. Finally his hydraulics hissed out pressure, sagging his systems. "It is simply a foreign concept, one that seems to be both painful and pleasurable," he went on at last, his thrumming voice sounding troubled. "It is a violation of your physical boundaries. I find it hard to understand how human females wish to engage in such an activity outside of the need to procreate."

Mikaela sat back against the broad tree behind her, crossing her outstretched legs at the ankle. Clearly he'd been giving this a lot of thought, and she could see his point. To his species, it was a paradox. She knew a little about spark merges from Ratchet following an explanation of where little mechs and femmes came from, so she could understand how a part of a man's body breaching into a part of a woman's body, repeatedly, was disconcerting information. "Well, firstly that's how it's designed to work, and it's meant to feel good – does feel good, because it encourages us to actually have sex and have children." A quick rolling gesture with her hands. "For gay men it's just the way they're wired – again, it feels good."

Optimus's thumb kept moving idly, unnoticed as he processed that. "I understand the biological drive to procreate, and that such an act is pleasurable. Humans have an abundance of sensory nodes designed for that sole purpose, and the Internet has evidenced many instances of enjoyed coupling in this way." He frowned, seeming to hesitate and consider his words before his cool gaze swept back to her. "I don't understand how you are able to allow it mentally. It seems an invasion. An indication of being a submissive recipient."

A lot of thought, Mikaela mused to herself as she tipped her head back with that statement, wondering how to explain this facet of sex that many of her own species still struggled with. Finally she thought of Sam, a smile teasing her mouth into a slight curve. "I suppose that the submission thing is part of it. You're giving yourself to someone else, like they're giving a bit of them to you. It's as close to being to someone as you can get, around and inside each other. It's a really loving act. Some people don't think so, or just do it out of lust, and some people get paid to do it, but generally you'd hear sex explained as something people in love do."

"But what of," Optimus began, optics narrowing with confusion mixed with something else as he looked at her, "sex without love? Or lust, or any circumstance that would indicate that both participants were willing."

"Then that's called something else," she replied flatly, all trace of a smile gone from her features. "If someone has sex with someone, whatever their genders, and they don't want it or aren't able to consent, then it's called rape."

His head tipped, voice coming softly. "Please explain."

Now it was her turn to fidget, drawing her knees up to herself and resting her hands in her lap. "Like, if someone gets really drunk or is tanked on a lot of drugs, and they get taken advantage of because they can't say 'yes' or 'no' to it at the time, then that's an assault. Just like if someone gets jumped on the street, or if they get bullied into it so they'll agree to it but they don't really want it. That kind of attack, because it's so personal, it's worse than normal violence."

"I see." His gaze shifted back to his hands.

Mikaela fidgeted, finding the sounds of the party a disconcerting contrast to the conversation. "The people it happens to… it takes a long time for them to recover from it. To learn to trust someone in that way again. That they aren't to blame for what happened, and that it hasn't made them dirty in some way."

A low mechanical sound and she saw that he was looking at her again, optics tight. Her mouth quirked. "This girl I used to hang with worked in a rough bar, stayed late to lock up one night. I didn't really know her, but you could tell afterwards. It's a horrible thing, Optimus, and it happens far too often."

"I agree," he murmured, optics darkening as he turned them back out to the trees in the direction of the party. After a long moment he twitched his head and looked back to her, smiling slightly. "Thank you, Mikaela, I believe I understand now."

"Anytime," she replied with a matching feigned attempt at lightness. Sensing that his question had been answered and that the conversation was over, she got to her feet and dusted off the back of her trousers. "I guess we should get back to the party now. They'll be wondering where we are."

Optimus nodded but made no move to rise. "Go ahead, Mikaela. I'll be there shortly."

With a final uneasy glance back, Mikaela moved back through the trees and trotted down the slope of the bluff towards Sam.

The lanky teen climbed unsteadily to his feet, wrapping an arm around her waist. "Hey 'kaela, everything okay? Saw the Boss Bot go up there after you."

"Uh, yeah," she replied quickly, leaning out of his hold to pick up a beer from the open cooler. "I think so anyway." Shaking her head, Mikaela forced a grin and nodded to Bumblebee, whom was tapping another High Grade keg for himself and Skids. "How'd the chicken dance go?"

Sam grinned, pressing a fist to his mouth. "Oh man, it's awesome. Bee put this whole robo-twist on it. Yo Bee! Get over here and show 'kaela that spinning thing!"

Popping the cap off the bottle using the hem of her shirt, Mikaela fixed her mouth into a keen smile and forced the lingering anxiety over the mech she'd left sitting in quiet contemplation from her mind. Clearly something was bothering him, and she could only assume that Optimus had been spending too much time focussing on the worst qualities that humanity had to offer.

* * *

Following their little chat this morning, Lennox had been casting subtle glances to Ironhide all night. It was very obvious that despite the atmosphere the dark mech was still distracted, and now that he knew about their relationship Lennox was really beginning to notice the distance Optimus had been putting between them. The Autobot leader had left the celebrating group a half hour ago, and Ironhide was sitting alone a little way from the group against the wall with a stack of empty High Grade cubes and bowed head.

Wondering if a loose tongue was also a side-effect of the Cybertronian's version of alcohol, Lennox wandered with his own beer around the fire to sit next to him in the dirt. "Hey, 'Hide. Not enjoying the party?"

Ironhide looked down to him with a low sound, reaching past the human for another cube and bringing it to rest beneath his jaw. "We shouldn't be celebrating, but, it's deserved at the same time. Most of us never thought we'd see peace in our lifetimes."

"Well, you, Prime and Ratchet are the only ones sitting out," Lennox broached with a sweeping gesture of his bottle, encapsulating the sprawling din. He frowned when he noted another missing face, though it surprised him less. "And Prowl, but I don't think he really counts."

A grim smile against the lip of the cube. "That's because we're the only ones who know what this cost," he groused quietly, his voice slurring across the hard consonants.

Now glad that he hadn't been on as heavy a bender as all the other soldiers, Lennox pressed in an equal volume, "What it cost Prime?"

"Yeah." Ironhide downed the cube and slung it into the pile, his private stash now mostly gone. Running a thumb along a thick groove in his chest plating – a scar that ran almost the width of him, he added in a growl, "A disgusting price."

The soldier took a long sip of his own drink and waited, scuffing his boots in the dirt and watching the twisting fire in front of them. Long minutes dragged by as Ironhide sat motionless and Lennox watched him deliberate in his peripheral vision.

"What do you know about interfacing?"

The question came before the mech actually moved again, making Lennox jump though he forced an impression of nonchalance. "Interfacing?"

Blue optics narrowed, vents rumbling. "What you would term sex for our species."

"Uh, I don't know… I never gave a lot of thought to how you guys reproduce, let alone how sex worked. Interfacing. Whatever," he trailed off, shaking his head with a dismissive wave. "I figured that it was just completely different for your species, and that's why some of you are so curious about it. Namely Bee. Just Bee, actually. Hell, I think Epps is running out of sex stories to tell him."

Ironhide grunted an acknowledgement and fell silent again, fans humming. Lennox waited a few minutes before nudging the closest piece of metal hard enough to bring the blue gaze back down to him. "Why is that relevant?"

The big mech's features shifted uncomfortably before he finally shook his head and got to his feet. "Come with me. We'll have that 'talk'."

"Alright," Lennox replied automatically, getting up as well and breaking into a jog to keep up as Ironhide took them around the corner of the Base.

Ironhide glanced down to the human though didn't slow his stride. "I need to show you something first."

Lennox nodded, feeling a knot of apprehension beginning to swell in his stomach. "Okay."

Ironhide stopped abruptly once they'd come around to the other side of the hanger where it was quieter. Deserted for the night, the area was dark but the mech was wary to bring about much more light than his optical glow and the stars. Rather than sitting, he turned to face the human and shifted down onto one knee.

With hard clicks and whines, his chest plates twisted and folded outwards to reveal the glowing blue light of his spark, smaller than Prime's but still fiercely bright. He watched Lennox's face with narrowed optics. "This is my spark. My soul. It is what gives what you would deem these lifeless parts life. What makes me the mech I am."

Lennox's eyebrows inched up a little closer to his hairline, and he stared openly at the strangely organic light. "Wow."

A low rumble as Ironhide glanced away, as if suddenly self-conscious, before he resealed his chest plates. "A bot doesn't show their spark to just anyone," he explained in gravelled tones, resting an arm on his knee.

The bottle in his hand forgotten, Lennox moved to lean against the side of the hanger, his brow knitted in thought. "So why me?"

"Because you need to understand what I'm going to tell you," came the flat reply, and Ironhide brought up a hand to pinch between his optics. "Because I think I do need some help."

A very large and painful admission for the old mech to make, and Lennox nodded solemnly to acknowledge as much. He set the half-drunk beer on the ground and folded his arms, waiting patiently for him to go on.

Mouthplates tightening momentarily, Ironhide looked to the human with bright optics. "During an Interface, it is the most… intimate way that we can be with another bot. We have interface lines and ports to transmit sensory packages, eliciting pleasure, and code data that could potentially create a sparkling. An infant." He shifted again, vents sighing. "Touches to the spark go beyond basic sensory pleasure and reproductive practicality. It is… a brief combining of souls."

Lennox bit his lower lip and nodded, making a thoughtful sound. He hadn't imagined that the metal organisms could experience anything like that. For knowing them for going on three years now, there was an awful lot he didn't know about them. "Sounds… Intense."

Ironhide nodded with a soft sound. "It is."

"Okay." Picking up the bottle again and taking a long swallow, Lennox began a slow pace. "So, that's your spark, and I guess that when you called Optimus your sparkmate, you meant that your sparks are joined together more permanently."

The mech nodded, satisfied that as much had already been understood. "Yes, we are bonded through our sparks. It gives us a heightened awareness of each other, and a more deeply ingrained communication link."

Lennox paused with an arched brow up at the dark mech. "Like telepathy?"

A whine as Ironhide considered that before grunting an affirmative. "Similar, yes."

"Okay." A rolling gesture with his hands, ending in both holding the bottle. "And it's like a marriage?"

Ironhide shifted off his knee and turned to sit back against the warehouse, watching Lennox pace thoughtfully and sip his drink. "More substantial, but that is the closest term your species has for it. It is a commitment until death. If Optimus's spark is extinguished, mine will follow shortly." A flicker of a smile, and his optics warmed. "It is infrequently done during war, and a powerful symbol of our commitment."

"Right. So, you guys are… bonded on the deepest level you could possibly be, and something's happened to Optimus that's hurting you through it?" Lennox stopped to regard the sitting mech, motioning with the bottle. "Is that it? Whatever he gave the Decepticons for peace is hurting him, and so it's hurting you too?"

Ironhide seemed to steel himself, vents exhaling shakily before he slowly replied, "Megatron summoned Optimus to a private meeting, offering a peace treaty." His gaze lowered and darkened, hands clenching into fists. "He wanted an interface, with my sparkmate. To touch his spark. Violate it."

Lennox blinked, momentarily forgetting to breath. "Rape?" The word came out quiet but hard with disbelief.

A barely perceptible nod, optics still downcast. "Yes."

The soldier grasped the back of his head and turned to look in the direction of the party, mouth open. "Oh God."

"Yeah."

Nauseating silence filled the air as both waited for the other to speak. Ironhide's cannons warmed unconsciously, the powerful lines behind them flexing in agitation. Lennox was waiting to wake up, or for some similar event that would make this untrue. He couldn't connect that word with Optimus Prime. Not what it meant and what it was given what Ironhide had told him about their spark being their soul. It was impossible to think of it as applying to the indomitable, invulnerable Autobot leader, whom had literally come back from the dead once already.

But it was true, and it had happened to him.

Lennox shook his head again, turning back to Ironhide. "Fuck… Does anyone else know?"

Ironhide looked up again at the question, resting his wrists on his knees. "Only Ratchet and Prowl. Optimus doesn't want anyone else to be told, and I agree with his decision."

The soldier realised that he was gripping the neck of the bottle hard enough to hurt, and consciously relaxed his hand. "Shit."

A sound like distant thunder escaped the mech, and Ironhide forced his gaze to remain on the other. "There's… more to it, what's making it impossible to, I don't know, deal with it." Another long pause and this time he shook his head in apology. "It's difficult."

"Yeah, of course," Lennox murmured, folding his arms and allowing his gaze to wander over the ground between them as he waited for Ironhide to summon the words.

"Megatron wished to feel that he had achieved a personal victory over him," Ironhide admitted in a rush, cannons retracting back in on themselves. "He, engaged in an act completely alien to our species, and I think it's been more destructive than his spark chamber being forced was. Slag, Ratch' and I don't know where to start with it."

"What did he do?"

A shunt akin to a human swallowing loudly. "Megatron forced him to receive him in the human female way. Split open his plates and cut up his protoform."

Lennox blanched at that and lowered himself to squat when he felt his legs weaken, the forgotten bottle rolling away after it was dropped. He gripped his jaw, eyes wide on the dark mech whose hands had begun to twitch minutely. "Jesus Christ."

Sitting forward, Ironhide rested his head in his hands in a rare display of insecurity, his broad body somehow appearing smaller as he curled in to rest his weight through his elbows onto his legs, optics fixed on the floor. "It's what's making things so difficult. If there had just been a forced spark merge, Ratchet would know how to help. But such a physical attack is a mystery to us. We don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. Optimus won't let me go after Megatron because of nullifying the peace, and I can't take that from him. I won't."

The raw emotion in that husky, typically gruff voice struck Lennox hard atop everything else he'd heard, and he scrubbed his face silently for a few moments. Ironhide remained still, systems humming from tension and the High Grade that took some of the edge off his anxiety. Lost as to what he could possibly say, Lennox sat back properly in a position that almost mirrored the mech's, one hand kneading the back of his neck.

Quite obviously there was nothing he could do that would help Optimus – Ironhide had said himself that he hadn't wanted anyone else to know. But Ironhide had gradually come to him to talk, to share the burden of this terrible event and to find solace in someone else just knowing so that he could sit like this, clearly worried, torn and seething angry about what had happened to his partner. His sparkmate. These guys were joined at the soul, Lennox reiterated to himself, his hand coming to press at his closed eyes as the implications of that truly sank in. If they had a quasi-telepathic link, then Ironhide would have experienced some of the attack, if not all of it. Knew every detail of what had happened to his lover. With a resolving exhale, he decided that Ironhide needed help as much as Optimus did right now, and that was something he could try to do.

"Before I met Sara, before I joined the Rangers, I dated this college girl for a few months," he began tentatively. "Nothing serious, y'know. It didn't go anywhere. We fell out of touch for a bit and then one day her mom calls me up. Charlotte got, attacked in the park walking back from campus, and her mom was just calling everyone, anyone who might know who did it. She just didn't know what to do."

He didn't realise he'd trailed off into silence. He hadn't thought about Charlotte in years.

"Will?" Ironhide pressed softly, sounding almost reluctant to break the quiet to do so.

Lennox looked up with a grim smile, shrugging a little. "It was one of her classmates. I didn't know the guy. But she was different afterwards. Skittish, like she was waiting for something bad to happen. And really quiet. She just sort of fell in on herself."

Ironhide nodded, finding the comparisons easy to draw. "What happened?"

The soldier sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "You know, the usual therapy thing and some drugs to make her feel safer and help her sleep. She had nightmares, and sometimes flashbacks in the daytime. She had to pull out of school for a while."

"What did you do?"

Lennox found his gaze flickering away under the glowing stare. "There wasn't much I could do. First off I'm a guy, so she wasn't really comfortable with having me around, and second I was her ex. We weren't even friends, really. I talked to her on the phone a few times, told her I was there if she needed me. Not a lot. She didn't want my help."

Ironhide's optics shuttered briefly, his mouth angling into a grimace. "Optimus told me he wanted my help, but he's been reluctant to take it any further."

"Just give him time. Best thing you can do right now is give him some time and space to get his head straight. He'll come to you when he's ready," Lennox replied, happy that he could assure as much and be certain of it. "He knows you're there for him, and that you'd do anything to help him."

The dark mech simply nodded at the statement, vents hissing as he straightened his body out to sit back against the hanger again. Rubbing at his jaw, he offered a slight smile. "Thank you for listening, Will."

A vague gesture back in the direction they had come, where the party still seemed to be going strong. "You want to head back, or just sit here for a while longer?"

"Just sit here for a while," Ironhide murmured, his expression denoting something like gratitude.

Lennox got up to sit next to the hulking mech, resting his head back against the metal wall to put his gaze on the night sky. Both soldiers fell into easy silence, their thoughts turned inwards but finding comfort in the solidarity.


	11. Chapter 11

Quits

_Chapter Eleven_

Optimus had insisted on waiting a week before Ratchet could set up a 'session' to give enough time for the Decepticons to take their leave of the planet. His protests to a counselling session had not been as strong as the medic had expected, and nothing close to his adamant refusal to talk about anything relating to the attack before the party. Apparently some High Grade and finally unwinding a bit with the Autobots had done him a lot of good, Ratchet mused to himself as he regarded the mech sitting across from him.

They'd elected to do this in Prime's quarters, sat opposite each other in the main living space that opened off from the entrance and led to the berth-room on the left. Ironhide was repairing training drones and the Medbay had been left to First Aid to run for the next few hours. Sitting back in the chair, Ratchet traced a hand across his jaw. "I think it'd be best if you retracted your mask, Optimus," he intoned softly.

The mech blinked out of whatever reverie he'd fallen into at the statement, frowning briefly before assenting with a _schlucht_ of metal that left his scarred mouth exposed. "Better?"

"Much," Ratchet replied with a slight nod. "You've been wearing it almost constantly for the last few weeks." He didn't need to voice his speculations as to why Optimus would be shielding his face, disguising any sign of his emotions that may escape through his internal barriers. Instead he chose a different approach. "How are things between you and Ironhide at the moment?"

Optimus shifted a little, resettling his hands on the chair. He'd resolved himself to be as forthcoming as possible for this conversation, in the vague hope that it would exorcise the twisting images and emotions from his processor. "Better than I'd hoped," he replied at last, assessing their contact to be about the equivalent of how they'd been when they were still only friends and comrades. That was mostly down to Ironhide, though, and he shook his head at the thought. "It's awkward sometimes."

Ratchet shifted his hands to fold across his middle. "How so?"

"He's keeping his distance," Optimus replied matter-of-factly, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and rub his exposed jaw, his hand taking over from his absent faceplate. "If it weren't for the sparkbond I'd be concerned that it was because he didn't want…" 'Me' hung like a dead weight and he shook his head, shrugging it off. "Ironhide's treating me as if I might break at any moment."

The medic offered a soft smile having already seen as much. Ironhide had spent the last week hovering over his sparkmate, watchful and protective, but hadn't actually come within four feet of him of his own accord. It was always Optimus who brushed their fingers when exchanging a cube of energon, or came to sit next to him in the rec room when the Commander had sought the company of bots who didn't know how their perpetual 'down time' had truly come about.

"He's giving you space because he fears that you may still be uneasy about physical contact," he replied, noting how Optimus's optics shifted to the floor between them. "He doesn't want to force you into closeness until you're ready."

"I can see why he's doing it," Optimus admitted evenly, brow knitting in a frown. "But it's not what I want. I'm not, anxious about contact. I miss it."

Ratchet arched a brow at that, surprised to hear as much. From his own training and what he'd read from the humans about treating subjects of such an assault, he'd been anticipating the mech to be wary of physical contact for several months. But Optimus had always been one to work through his thoughts privately, seeking out what he needed to resolve as much as he could alone before really asking for help. It was what he'd done when he'd made the jump from a simple dock worker to Prime, and what he was doing now. Quickly and effectively. He'd seen him follow Mikaela into the woods at the party and re-emerge some time after she had with an obviously loaded processor. About the same time that Ironhide had vanished with Lennox, in fact. It seemed fitting somehow that the ones Prime had sacrificed himself to protect were the ones being turned to now for advice.

To Optimus's admission, he simply asked, "Why haven't you told him?"

A quirked smile and those bright optics remained averted. "Just in case I am, actually, still anxious," he replied quietly, inwardly bemused at how few words it took to express the jumble of things he felt on the subject. He missed how they'd been with each other, the little habits and rituals that came with being sparkbound, but at the same time he was terrified of reinitiating such closeness only to find that it disturbed him in some way. That it could potentially frightened his processor back into memories he was keenly trying to ignore. Nothing would be worse than transferring that fear across to Ironhide, associating him with such intimate distress.

Ratchet waited until Optimus's body relaxed from where it had tensed upon itself in the chair, his posture curved and apprehensive. Finally the tall mech blinked out of his thoughts and slid his hand up to pinch at the space between his optics, regaining his composure and finally straightening a little in the chair. Ratchet made a soft sound. "He's feeling the same apprehension, I'm certain, but the bond will actually help you in that respect. You'll be able to gauge one another instantaneously."

Optimus nodded though his head remained bowed, his countenance thoughtful. He hadn't thought of that. It was obvious really. Ironhide couldn't deceive him without completely shutting down the bond, and it would be the same for him, so the waters could be tested without fear that one of them was disguising their own feelings. Rushing themselves into something they weren't ready for yet, either from fear of hurting or fear of being hurt.

Sensing that he'd given Optimus enough to think about in that respect, Ratchet made a small gesture of moving on. "How are you in yourself? Are you recharging okay? Any fluxes?" As soldiers they were programmed to rarely dream – to do so nightly was a potentially nightmarish existence, but sometimes it still happened.

"No, my processor has remained blank during recharge." Vents hummed in a tremble of thought, his optics narrowing fractionally. "I sometimes get, flashes of what happened, but nothing in particular triggers them."

Ratchet tipped his head at that, his plates arranged in concern when Optimus fixed his gaze down again. "Flashes of what, exactly?"

A long silence drew out as if Optimus simply hadn't heard the question, but from the tension that haunted his shoulders he was clearly giving the question a lot of thought. Not that it was hard to find an answer: it was a hard answer to give. But he'd resolved himself to honest disclosure for the sake of resolving this in his processor. "Megatron using that thing," he finally uttered, forcing weight into his voice when it threatened to come out tenuous. The words still came slowly, though, every syllable a battle to force out. "Watching the ceiling because he'd forbidden me to shutter my optics. Feeling him move, his hands, his mouth everywhere. In my mouth. My parts splitting, grinding apart every time he moved against me. In me." A hard shunt of hot air. "Ironhide's voice, talking me through it across the bond. "

The medic couldn't help but notice the absence of the one thing he'd really expected to come up – the obvious trauma in these attacks. When Optimus fell silent, he pressed, "What about him forcing you to expose your spark?"

Optimus's mouth twisted downwards in a grim smile at the question, and he shifted to sit back in the chair with a sigh. "Him touching my spark bothers me the least."

The remark took the medic by surprise, and he allowed it to show only momentarily. "Why?"

Optimus met the other's gaze squarely, his expression open. "He didn't expose his spark, only manipulated mine. I had anticipated him seeing my spark from the moment I agreed to his terms," he explained with a genuine peace. It had taken a while for him to find solace in this detail, and now he held onto it fiercely as his first acceptance of the event. "We didn't touch sparks and trade feelings or memories. It was more detached than that, and I've let it go."

Taking a moment to absorb that, Ratchet steeled himself for the hard question that would likely land him in unfamiliar waters. "What is it that you can't let go?"

"The way he breached my body. The parody of human sex," Optimus admitted bluntly, hearing Ratchet's vents sigh in confirmation. His hands slid into fists, gaze flickering about the floor before he forced it back to the would-be counsellor, wanting an answer to this. "The act in itself should be meaningless. It shouldn't bother me because I'm not human, but it does."

"Because it does have meaning, one that Megatron twisted to use against you in as destructive a way as possible," Ratchet replied in a tone of firm consolation. It was important that the mech realised and accepted this; accepted his feelings as valid and not to be disregarded as unfounded. "He did it to physically invade you, to make you feel submissive."

Optimus's gaze shifted down again, a tremor passing through his frame strong enough to make his fists clench.

"He called me a fleshling whore."

The admission was so soft that Ratchet almost didn't hear it, and he had to fight his own instincts not to get up and simply put his arms around the trembling mech. He forced himself to wait, frozen in the chair.

"He said that he didn't want a spark merge, but to…" A hard sound through his vents, and his optics shuttered firmly. "To fuck me. He did it to humiliate me. To shame me."

"It's only humiliating if you allow yourself to perceive it as such," Ratchet replied softly, sitting forward in the chair in some unconscious need to offer comfort through proximity. "The shame should reflect on him, not you. It was a vicious, underhanded, cowardly attack, and there's nothing shameful in being disturbed by it." He shook his head, voice adopting its usual dryness. "Pit, I'd be surprised if you'd been as unaffected as you'd said you were."

Optimus's fists relaxed, one hand holding the arm of the chair whilst the other came up to brush his jaw. His optics remained occupied with the floor, voice soft. "He broke into my body and derived pleasure from it. I can still feel it, even though you've replaced everything."

Permitted by his patient's averted stare, Ratchet shuttered his own optics and surreptitiously touched at the space between them as those first scans flashed across his processor. The wound hacked and bored out had been so deep, like nothing he'd ever seen before. So much had had to be picked out a fragment at a time from the soup of what little fluids remained. "That will pass," he finally assured, though it wasn't something he could be certain of. Some bots had claimed that parts that had been replaced after a battle had hurt decades later, ghost pains from glitches in their processors. It usually stopped after a period of time. "Overwriting it with more welcomed sensations and experiences will help."

"I hope so. Ironhide and I haven't… since." Optimus shook his head, helpless, and looked back to Ratchet. "I can't bring myself to start anything, and he refuses to initiate. But I want to." His gaze hardened. "I don't want the last mech to touch my spark to be Megatron."

"Is that all?"

A thin, almost regretful smile. "And I want us to get better. To be sparkmates again."

Ratchet smiled warmly at that, confidant that, sooner or later, that would be the case. "He waited for you for centuries before telling you how he felt. I think he'll wait a little longer for an interface."

Optimus matched the expression with additional relief, resting his jaw on his fist. "True."

The medic sat back again, thinking on the other element that he'd wanted to cover. Supporting Prime right now was a priority, and one that Ironhide, Prowl and himself were trying to do to the best of their ability. But as everyone else on the Base had remained in the dark as to what had happened, there'd been more than one instance where an innocent action had caused unneeded harm. The Twin's violent boisterousness shattering the quiet that had previously reigned in the rec room that had made Optimus jerk like a plasma bomb had gone off; Bumblebee getting behind the tall mech and playfully holding him by the hips as a barrier against Wheeljack whom had been approaching him with a spiked implement, earning a panicked whine from his weapons systems; little things that would never have bothered Prime before but now jarred him.

"What about everyone else? Are you still content that they don't know?"

"It's complicated," Optimus admitted, uneasy. "This isn't information I would wish them to have, and there is no need for them to know. But I also feel as if I should make some kind of confession." A hand moved across his armour to tap at a point over the Matrix, an entirely unconscious action. "I feel as though I have betrayed the Autobots as Prime by, giving myself to Megatron, even though I did what I thought was right for them."

"You thought it was right at the time." Ratchet frowned, having wondered on this point himself. "Do you think you would have done differently if you'd had time to think about it?"

"No." The reply was flat and solid, without apology. Clearly it had been dwelt upon for a long time already. "Even though I realise now that it was a mistake, I wouldn't have chosen to do anything other than to ultimately meet Megatron's terms for peace. But, I should have thought about the wider repercussions. Prepared myself better so that it wouldn't be affecting me so much afterwards. Prevented it from weakening me as a leader for the Autobots. I-"

"You're still a mech, Optimus," Ratchet broke in before the commander could continue tearing strips off himself and rebuild the armour about his emotions, undoing the progress he'd made so far. "Everyone makes mistakes, gets hurt, and everyone takes time to recover. And you're not letting them down now by needing to recover from this."

Optimus's jaw had hardened, one hand clenched into a fist. "I'm Prime. There's a limit."

"I think you're letting the symbol get in the way of yourself here," Ratchet stated with narrowed optics, injecting more sympathy into his tone than he had in the past when he'd reminded Optimus that he didn't need to act as untouchable as his title suggested, and that it was detrimental that he try. "You were once just Orion. A part of you still is. The only way you're going to get past this is if you let yourself be just a mech. You're not invulnerable, and you can't expect yourself to be."

The Autobot leader looked away at that truth, bitterly noting that before Megatron had walked him to his berth on the Nemesis that he'd sorely needed reminding of that. He'd felt himself die in the woods, still had the nauseating memory of seeing his spark chamber shatter outwards as he was impaled and of the trees slowly tipping as he crumpled. But then he'd gasped back into a world of heat and pain, his injuries screaming at his systems that were now burning with unexpected life at the same time as Sam screamed at him to get up and to fight. He'd come back from the dead, hadn't even gotten off the ground before his body was encumbered by more armour and weapons than he could ever be comfortable with, and charged into one last savage fight with the Fallen barely a minute later.

Though Sam's trials to bring about his resurrection had humbled him, the fact that even death hadn't kept him down for more than a few days had gone to his head a little. It was why he'd been so confident to go to the Nemesis knowing what would happen, had consented easily to Megatron's terms in the arrogant assumption that he would just accept it into his processor as he had dying. He hadn't expected it to hurt this much, and to be rippling out to affect others. Especially Ironhide, whom after trying to shut him out of the bond he'd clung to like a lifeline whilst the Decepticon satisfied his whims. At first he'd blamed Ironhide for not allowing his mind to go blank and his body passive on the berth, for encouraging him to speak and think and feel. To acknowledge what was happening to his body. But now he was grateful. It was very likely that it was what had allowed him to survive it now. Because he wasn't invulnerable. And he was hurting.

Being reminded of that again by Ratchet caused his optics to darken, mouth tightening into a thin line. The medic watched the internal tirade silently, noting how Optimus's cooling systems had come online to soothe his agitated lines. "It's okay to hurt, Optimus. It doesn't make you weak," he murmured, shifting forwards again when the mech moved to cup his face in his hands, fingers meeting in a point between his hazy optics.

Hands issuing a tinny rattle as they shook, Optimus pressed them harder against his face to silence the noise and made a soft sound of acknowledgement. It felt like his spark had just cracked in half, and it was a relief as much as it was agony.

Casting aside professionalism as he saw the last armour plates slide down from the mech, Ratchet closed the space between them to kneel before his Prime. Placing his hands gently about the broad wrists, he met the blue optics as they flickered back to meet his stare.

"It's okay."

The blue light wavered at the edges again before the shutters came down, and the plates of Optimus's face shifted together tightly. His head bowed deeper, resting fully in his hands as his fingers pressed into his helm. Ratchet kept one hand about a wrist and moved the other to cup the nape of Optimus's neck, his touch strong against the trembling lines.

"It's okay."

A shudder at that and his vents hitched, fans whining jerkily behind them. Ratchet shuttered his own optics and concentrated on regulating his own intakes, retracting the internal mufflers so that the sounds of his systems working came out louder through his frame. He sighed inwardly as he sensed Optimus instinctively catching onto the sounds and beginning to force his own systems to imitate, regulating them. Their vents shared warm air in reflected eddies, one trembling on the out and the other bearing itself as the steady model. The sound of air moving between them, through them, filled the room with a busy silence, offsetting any oppressiveness.

The medic's comm. chirped at an obscene volume, causing Optimus to straighten instantly out of the consoling hands and draw his composure back about him. Within moments he appeared stoic and regal again, his countenance strong though his optics remained hazy at their borders. Ratchet sighed and sat back on his haunches, allowing the message to come through aloud.

_First Aid to Ratchet, you're needed in the Medbay._

Gritting his dental plates and pinching between his optics, Ratchet tried to temper his tone. _I'm in the middle of something. Can't you and Wheeljack take care of it?_

_Uh, I really think we're out of our league here, Sir. _

Ratchet looked up and found Optimus's concerned optics fixed on him. _What's happened?_

_It's Starscream. He's been brought in by the Seekers. _A hesitant pause._ Do you want us to wait for you?_

Optimus made the decision for him by rising to his feet and making for the door, his features tight and all sign of unease from his body gone. With a long-suffering sound, Ratchet got up and followed at an equally hurried pace.

* * *

Starscream moved like a wild animal against the back wall of the Medbay, trampling the items that had fallen to the ground with sharp metallic squeals beneath his feet. His nul ray was raised and tracked manically back and forth between the two Autobots trying to placate him, his face a twisted mask of fury. A steady trail of energon was running down his back and legs. First Aid had a sedative poised in his hand but didn't dare get any closer, and Wheeljack simply held his hands up with wide optics.

A little way back and facing the standoff, Ironhide stood behind the two other Seekers, a firm hand on each of their shoulders whilst his cannons tracked their leader. His gaze didn't move when the doors opened to admit Optimus and Ratchet, the former stopping to assess the scene.

"Starscream, Ironhide, stand down. We are at peace," Optimus snapped, looking between the two mechs.

"He shot at Wheeljack," Ironhide replied flatly, cannons twitching to the right as Starscream moved to put a berth between himself and the Autbots.

Skywarp looked to the Prime. "It was a warning shot."

"No, he just missed," Thundercracker corrected with an arched brow. To Optimus's gaze he nodded to the berth beside them, specifically to the ragged metal sheets that lay atop it still dripping fluids. "Megatron tearing his wings off sent him a bit… We didn't know where else to go."

"Understood," Optimus intoned with a nod, looking to the wounded Seeker again. Starscream's wild gaze locked onto his with a flicker of recognition though the nul ray remained raised.

An unspoken exchange. _Did he?_

Starscream's arm wavered on the mech. Finally he shook his head and lowered the weapon. _Not this time._

Optimus took a step forward to test the waters, satisfied when the Seeker didn't take a step away. He didn't move his gaze as he spoke. "Ironhide, take Skywarp and Thundercracker out to the yard. Wheeljack and First Aid go with them and attend to any repairs they may need. Ratchet and I will remain with Starscream."

Ironhide's cannons powered down with a whine. :You sure about this?:

:Don't worry, 'Hide, it'll be fine. There are just too many bots in here right now.:

The dark mech waited for Wheeljack to move towards the door and lead the Seekers out, looking to Optimus with bright optics before following on. :Thought you were talking to Ratchet.:

A faint smile. :I was. Don't worry, 'Hide, it's alright. I'll see you tonight.:

The room emptied of all but the three mechs, and a subtle gesture from Optimus stayed Ratchet's instinct to administer a sedative. He began examining the torn wings on the berth instead, running his fingers along the damaged struts. "They can be reattached, Prime, but I'll need to see to his back now. Several main lines have been severed."

Optimus tipped his head to Starscream but maintained his distance. "Will you permit my medic to help you?"

Starscream looked between the two before giving a slight nod, re-holstering the nul ray in a jerked motion and moving to rest his hand on the closest berth. Optimus came to stand in front of him, watching Ratchet move behind the damaged mech to assess the damage. "Megatron tore your wings off?"

A sneer that turned into a hiss as he arched away from Ratchet's fingers. "He wasn't pleased with our wanting to stay behind."

Optimus shuttered his optics with a rattling sigh through his vents. He'd expected some sort of punishment to be dealt out on Starscream for wanting to leave, but this kind of damage was beyond cruel. Taking a Seeker's ability to fly was like withholding energon, and it was a double blow now as their incentive to remain had been having the freedom to fly about Earth's atmosphere. "He stripped you of the very thing you wanted to stay for."

There was a crack of a soldering iron from behind as Ratchet closed up the weeping lines, and Starscream dug his claws a clean inch into the berth. His optics narrowed on Optimus, blood red and seething. "You really think that Megatron would just let us go without any repercussions? It could have been any of us who he turned on. I just happened to be in the way."

"No you weren't," Optimus replied quietly, just loud enough for Starscream to hear. "It was always going to be you who paid for it."

Starscream didn't seem to know what to do with that statement, clicking his gaze downwards and keeping it there. He grunted as Ratchet made the short-term repairs, his slighter frame twitching with exhaustion and pain.

Ratchet deactivated the solder and looked to Optimus over the Seeker's shoulder. "He's going to need a transfusion," he stated simply, mouth a grimace as he continued to catalogue the damage.

Wordlessly Optimus drew out a fuel line from his midsection, reaching for one of Starscream's hands clutching at the table. Meeting no resistance from the stiffly trembling mech, he forced the end into a slot in his wrist and began to pump energon through once he felt the connective seal fall into place. Starscream could just be given energon to replenish his systems, of course, but with this much damage a charged supply was needed, one which Prime could amply provide with very little effort.

"I could have done it," Ratchet murmured as he came about the berth to run a quick scan on the fluids being passed. He could detect Optimus's spark energy curling through the connective line, causing Starscream to utter a relieved sigh as some of the burning sensations plaguing his core systems began to abate.

"No, I trust Prime," Starscream spoke up, his gaze still averted though his body was beginning to relax.

"And I don't mind," Optimus assured, resettling his weight on his feet for a longer stay as his energon was drawn into the Seeker's parched systems. He took the cube of energon that Ratchet handed him with a grateful smile, taking a sip as he looked back to the feeding mech. "The Nemesis left two days ago. Where have you been?"

Starscream glanced up, grimacing. "We've set up a temporary shelter on the volcano." A hiss as Ratchet began to pick at his wounded parts again. "It was Thundercracker who insisted on bringing us here. Apparently my… injuries outstripped the supplies we have."

"I'm glad he did," Optimus replied, exchanging a glance with Ratchet. The medic's brow was tight with concentrating, suggesting quite clearly how bad the mech's condition was. With the amount of energon that was being drawn out of his systems to stabilize him, he guessed that the Seeker would only have managed to survive another day without help. "Is that where you'll be wanting to return to?"

"That'd be pure negligence," Ratchet snapped quietly, extending a probe from his thumb into the neural line inside the mech's backstrut to ease off his pain sensors.

"It's an optimal site to produce energon," Starscream replied flatly, ignoring the medic. "And we don't require looking after by the Autobots."

"It wouldn't be caretaking if you remained," Optimus said as he rose the cube to his mouth again and drained it, though Starscream was vastly outstripping his intake. "Without the war we are no longer a part of enemy factions. You'd simply be joining fellow Cybertronians. More than likely we'll be moving to that site on the volcano as a more permanent home, which you would be welcomed to join."

Starscream gave a vague nod to indicate that he'd listened but gave no sign as to whether or not he agreed with it, his optics shuttering slowly and his head cocking as if listening to something on the edge of hearing. "You're transmitting, Prime."

Optimus shifted a little at that, though he'd already known that emotions could be passed along through bio-electrified energon in a transfusion. He looked to the medic, his unseen gaze met with a dismissive shrug.

"It's a side-effect of the charge," Ratchet explained smoothly, his focus still intent on his work. "Prime can't help it."

Lips parting a little, Starscream clicked softly at the thin ribbon of feeling that seeped into his spark as the donated energon soaked into his systems. "You're sparkbound."

There was nothing in the tone that indicated anything other than it being a statement, and Optimus gave a slight nod when red optics relit on him. "I am."

Starscream shifted a little on his feet, gripping the berth and bowing his head as Ratchet pulled something now useless free from his body, and what remained of the stabilizing wing strut was laid on the berth next to him. "You're lucky."

Optimus smiled a little at that, his voice equally soft. "I know."

Ratchet stepped back with optics bright and flickering in a scan. Finally he looked to Optimus and gestured to the fuel line. "Alright, that's enough to stablize him. No sense in getting you so low that you need a berth as well. I'll need to put him under for the rest of the work."

The tall mech saw the burning question lurking in the red eyes that watched him. "You'll reattach his wings?"

"By the end of the day they'll be sore but working," Ratchet assured, offering Starscream a thin smile. His gaze shifted back to Optimus. "Retract the line and go have at least four cubes before resting. And that's an order."

It was a grizzled kind of affection was Optimus was very familiar with it and smiled at the genuine concern that lay within it, obediently sealing off the connection before drawing the fuel line back into himself. "I'll check in on you tomorrow, Starscream."

The Seeker made a vague sound, lifting a knee up onto the berth and moving to lie on his stomach under Ratchet's guiding hands. The medic tripped his processor to put him under as soon as he'd settled, his complex hands sliding on his hips as he arched a brow at Optimus. "Go rest – I mean it. You've done more than enough today."

Optimus's optics narrowed in thought at that, though he did take his leave of the Medbay to allow Ratchet to work. He smiled unseen in the corridor outside. "Almost enough."

* * *

Ironhide returned to his shared quarters with one hand still pinching his optics from a very long day. Skywarp and Thundercracker had been queerly amicable about his supervision, waiting to hear word on Starscream as Wheeljack and First Aid made minor repairs and calibrations. His own processor had been occupied with his sparkmate, making him particularly glad of their complete co-operation, though he'd been mindful not to encroach on the bond today. He didn't know where Optimus's mind was going to be given his counselling session that morning, and he didn't want to encroach unwanted.

Finding the lights off as he stepped inside, he assumed himself to be alone and moved into the berth room for a quick recharge before he'd check in on his sparkmate's office with the intention to drag him out. Instead, he found himself pausing in the doorway watching Optimus's recharging form on the berth. Obviously it had only been a light rest as the sound of him coming into the room brought the mech's optics online.

"Go back to recharging," Ironhide murmured as he came about the berth, rolling his shoulders with loud pops and clicks as he loosened himself up to do the same.

Optimus sat up with a thin smile, moving down the berth to sit on its end beside where Ironhide stood watching him with a quizzical expression. "I think I'm done," he replied simply, slipping his hand about the darker mech's and drawing him closer. "I think I want my sparkmate now."

Ironhide made a soft sound of assent, mingled with approval though his optics narrowed as he came about to stand before the other mech between his legs. "You sure?"

:Yes: came the simple reply, flowing warm across their bond on a tide of affection for him and want to reaffirm -them-.

With Optimus sat on the edge of the berth, long legs parted to run alongside Ironhide's as he stood, their jaws were equalised in height. One hand thumbing the central seam of the larger mech's chassis in slow, sensual touches, Ironhide ran the other about Optimus's neck, stroking the neural lines offered up between plates. Optics shuttered and cheek resting against the dark mech's, Optimus ran his hands slowly about wide hips and up along the thick backstrut, tracing familiar paths and feeling the heavy engine vibrate through his fingertips.

On their own the touches were comforting, isolated gestures of affection that they had given and taken away from the berth in public. Handing in a pad in Prime's office, Ironhide would come about the stand at his shoulder and rub a hand along the tense lines in his neck just as he was doing now. Passing each other on patrol there'd be a glancing touch to chassis or back, a brief instance where they were openly sparkmates on duty. It was only in the sanctity of privacy that they permitted the small touches to come together, to unite in close mutuality and lead them to the logical destination of interface and heady overload. Such touches hadn't been a part of their lives since Megatron, and the rediscovery was cautious yet sensational.

The bond was wide open, exposing every flitting anxiety that encroached upon the warm eddies of arousal building and flowing from both mechs. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement not to question or apologise for them, rendering them incidental though they remained mindful of their presence.

Apprehension was keeping their arousal tempered now, mostly Ironhide's to the specialist's own surprise. His touches restrained to two areas on the mech's body spoke of his fear of pushing Optimus too far, or making him feel obliged to go faster than he was comfortable from feeling his own desire. It was very obvious over the bond, and Optimus smiled at the concern, hands sliding up about the mech's broad sides to touch his neck.

:I trust you, 'Hide.:

A rumble through billowing vents, and Ironhide pulled back a little to meet relit optics. :We go at your pace.: It wasn't a suggestion, coming as a promise through the bond. When Optimus shuttered an acknowledgement Ironhide laid a brief kiss, as soft as their substance could be, and slid his hands downwards to the slim waist. With a quirked smile, he knelt at the foot of the berth and chuckled at the surprise that bubbled back at him. :Relax. I want to try something.:

Optimus gave a shaky nod, finding it an effort not to keep his unease from transmitting now as blunt fingers traced about his hips, down his thighs and finally swept down to his interface panel. Since bonding a year ago they'd rarely used their cables and ports, finding that they weren't a patch on spark merges in terms of pleasure and relief. Megatron's hand had been the first to encroach on that panel in almost a year, and he'd destroyed it. The replaced unit was sharply sensitive, sliding open easily at a requesting touch from Ironide's thumb to expose bundles of cables that split to feed into his legs, all shiny with lubrication for movement. The new neural lines twitched with the exposure, sending a cold wave through his legs that warmed when Ironhide's vents breathed heat over them.

Unbidden the memory of claws splitting the delicate feeds swelled up in his processor, and Optimus's hands moved to grip the edge of the berth as he willed them back. The tirade didn't subside, and immediately he could feel a ghost pain from the serrated implement that Megatron had forced inside, sawing into his parts and butchering systems that had always been too deeply placed to sustain injury in the past. As Ironhide pulsed warm air onto the open ports and glowing lines, he couldn't suppress a hiss as his hands tightened, denting the berth.

:Trust me, love: Ironhide murmured, his hands moving to rest on taut thighs as he brought his mouth to touch at the open panel. Running his glossa over the trembling ports, he registered bitterness from the lubricants but a sweet buzz from the exposed tips of neural lines in the interface cables. Bringing a hand to a sensitive point in the pit of his throat, he teased one of his own lines between thumb and finger, grunting as a hot swell passed through his systems and forcibly down the bond.

Stunned and bewildered by the act, Optimus was caught-off guard by the wave of pleasure that passed into him without warning down the bond, arching with a gasp through his vents that was strong enough to draw sound through his vocal processor. :What're you doing?:

:Overwriting something: Ironhide replied flatly, catching a cable between his dental plates and teasing it out, flicking it with his glossa as he continued to self-stimulate with trembling hands. Encouraged by Optimus's groan and the hand that moved to touch his helm, he sent a soft charge through his mouth to race down through the heated ports. Another low sound of pleasure, and the mech thanked Primus that this was working for his lover: displacing the memory of how Megatron felt butchering his interface unit in a foreign act by associating pleasure with another that would be meaningless if it weren't for his fingers working over his own sweet spots.

More than that, his attention to the previously destroyed area on the mech's body sent a message of acceptance, and reclaimed it as theirs again. Theirs for mutual pleasure alone, no matter how much the memory of Megatron's body might try to keep a hold of it. Taint it.

He felt as much as heard Optimus's chassis split above him, shuddering at how the exposure enhanced the feeling coming from his own working hands, and again at how the tall mech jerked when the sensation was shared. Bringing his hand from his neck, Ironhide traced the bottom of his own chassis in a teasing stroke before parting the thick plates, tripping over his parts just as his partner had hundreds of times before.

:'Hide, if you don't get up here now, I'm putting you on monitor duty for a month: Optimus growled tightly over the bond, the hand on the kneeling mech's head tightening in spasm as he tried to bring his body away from that keen mouth.

With a dark chuckle, Ironhide came up obligingly and crawled up onto the berth as Optimus shifted back on it to lie, finally settling astride slim hips with his feet tucked back under his thighs. He looked down upon darkened azure optics, smiling at the fuzzy edges to the light and shuttering his own when strong hands slid into his waist, ghosting upwards.

:You doing okay?: he asked down the bond as a low moan was drawn from his vocals, shifting his body as a heady charge started to thrum in his chassis.

Optimus wrapped his hands around the bases of his sparkmate's cannons to draw him down, arching when the proximity made their sparks pulse towards each other. :Yes. Just don't stop.:

:Wasn't planning on it: Ironhide replied darkly with a slick grin, resting on his knees to run his hands along the broad chassis, shivering when the throbbing spark sent tendrils out along the warm metal to chase his fingers. Usually it was about now that he fixed his hands somewhere on his sparkmate's body to hold him: wrists, shoulders, neck. Inherently dominant gestures. Resisting the habit now, he found himself at a loss as to what to do with his hands. :You want to top for a change?:

Stilling at the soft inquiry, Optimus put a hand to Ironhide's jaw to draw his focus. :It's just us here, 'Hide. You don't need to do anything differently.: The dark mech frowned, vents thrumming. Optimus smiled. :I like what you're doing, and I'd tell you if I didn't. I love you.:

:Love you too,: Ironhide rumbled back, strong hands _schlucht_ing up to grip the mech's shoulders, slowly bringing one to lay under his neck and brace him against the berth. The other traced a long arm down to the hand, their fingers intertwining as he finally brought their chassis together.

Optimus bucked with a shout, optics shuttering and systems exploding in on themselves in a flurry of sensation, his free arm wrapping about a broad shoulder. Against the drunken heat of arousal was a cold stream of panic, but it seemed to only hone the edge of want as Ironhide's grip on him tightened and the mech groaned long and loud against his finial.

Legs tangled and vents billowing hot, copper-scented air, they ground to slot their bodies even closer to one another, sparks pulsating in thick waves and nearly synchronized. The bond sang, their vocals hovered at the deepest timbres and their limbs grappled for even more closeness. Pinned and heaving, Optimus forced his optics open to see Ironhide's head bowed over his, dentals gritted as he lost himself in the nova of their shared sparks now close to merging. Love, need, relief, protectiveness, possessiveness and devotion filled his processor from the bond, and he found himself letting go off the last hook's of fear from the memory of Megatron's body over him. It was enough to shatter the final lines separating him from overload, and his own shout of ecstasy dragged Ironhide over the precipice. Their sparks flashed between them in a molten explosion that ran on and on, seizing their bodies before stealing all strength from their systems and leaving them collapsed around each other.

Optimus regained himself first some time later, bringing the hand that Ironhide wasn't holding to the mechs face and tipping his head to kiss him. It was a slow kiss, gradually deepening not from want but from a communication of what this meant across the bond. A message that couldn't be articulated. When their glossa finally parted and Ironhide rested his helm against his, Optimus ran his fingers down the mech's cheeks and shuttered his optics with a sigh. :I never thanked you. For what you did.:

Ironhide smiled a little, flexing his grip on Optimus's hand to squeeze it. :You never had to.:

Usually they would shift now to allow their chassis plates to reseal and cover their sparks, but for now they enjoyed the proximity of each other's souls. Optimus sighed through his vents, bringing his hand from Ironhide's cheek to cup the nape of his neck. :I think we're going to be okay.:

Propping himself up on his elbows, Ironhide regarded the younger mech beneath him with dim optics in a soft, searching gaze. Finally his mouth quirked into a smile, sated and content. :Yeah: he breathed down the bond, bowing his head to lay another kiss. :Yeah, I reckon so.:

* * *

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you've enjoyed it. A review, either good or bad, would be fantastic and much appreciated.

Thank you again. Though challenging, it was a pleasure to write this and see what people thought of it as it developed.

~ Borath


End file.
